PTI’s rural development agenda
Let us think about who the rural poor are
PHOTO: FILE
Long before coming to power, the PTI had been emphasising the need for agricultural reforms by simultaneously increasing farmer profitability and boosting agricultural growth. Now that it has formed the government, the party is in a position to implement its agriculture sector vision.
Focusing on agricultural development is certainly important, even though Pakistan is experiencing rapid urbanisation. One major reason for focusing on our rural areas is the fact that our current pace of urbanisation is not sustainable. Our cities and peri-urban areas are ill-planned and hard-pressed to absorb the increasing rural influx due to which urban poverty and slum dwellings are growing fast. On the other hand, while the agriculture sector now comprises less than a quarter of our annual GDP, nearly half the people working in our country are still doing so in the agriculture sector.
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Before focusing on PTI’s plans to revitalise agricultural development and uplift the rural poor, let us think about who the rural poor are. While landholdings have been fragmenting over the past few generations, land ownership remains highly concentrated, with an estimated 2% of households controlling 30% of the total cultivable land. Besides, middle-sized and small farmers, a large proportion of the rural workforce does not own land, nor does it have enough money to pay upfront cash to lease land. Landless farmers have no choice but to sharecrop or else work as seasonal or daily-wage labourers.
It is these landless farmers, including women, who are the real backbone of our agricultural system, are the ones most marginalised and neglected by agricultural development policies of the past.
Yet, as the agriculture sector is even not considered a part of the formal economy, it is not subjected to any wage or work safety oversight. Many larger farmers have exerted their influence to ensure that their sharecroppers are not mentioned on land revenue records to avoid giving them the meagre protection provided in our tenancy laws. Daily-wage or seasonal agricultural labourers also work without any contracts, often being paid well below the minimum wage.
The need to address the plight of these long neglected landless farmers must not be forgotten when assessing the merit of agricultural development policies. Agricultural growth strategies of the future must avoid mistakes of the past. The so-called Green Revolution in Pakistan was an elite-led and capital-driven strategy which may have boosted yields, but it did little to address rural deprivation and growing food insecurity or to curb rural outmigration.
The PTI has promised to further deregulate the seed market and incentivise farmers to conserve water and adopt regenerative agriculture. It wants to optimise existing subsidy programmes, reduce input costs, improve access to finance, champion mechanisation and incentivise value-addition for exports.
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However, how the above measures can help improve the lives of our poorest landless farmers is not evident. If experience is anything to go by, new subsidy initiatives will be captured by larger farmers. Many similar schemes, such as tractor and tube well subsidies, often did not benefit smaller farmers, who still had to rent tractors and tube wells which big landlords of Punjab and Sindh had acquired using government subsidies. Even if some of the announced PTI benefits do reach middle-sized or smaller farmers, the plight of the landless poor will remain unaddressed.
Many prominent PTI advisers and ministers have vested interests in the agriculture sector. They own sugar mills and large corporate farms, which may help their owners make impressive profits, but they do little to address the plight of landless labourers employed by them.
Like its predecessors, the PTI is also keen to draw foreign investors into the agriculture sector. Foreign investments in agriculture may help generate more agricultural revenues, but how it will help improve local food security, or address the plight of our landless agricultural labourers, remains unanswered.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 30th, 2018.
Focusing on agricultural development is certainly important, even though Pakistan is experiencing rapid urbanisation. One major reason for focusing on our rural areas is the fact that our current pace of urbanisation is not sustainable. Our cities and peri-urban areas are ill-planned and hard-pressed to absorb the increasing rural influx due to which urban poverty and slum dwellings are growing fast. On the other hand, while the agriculture sector now comprises less than a quarter of our annual GDP, nearly half the people working in our country are still doing so in the agriculture sector.
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Before focusing on PTI’s plans to revitalise agricultural development and uplift the rural poor, let us think about who the rural poor are. While landholdings have been fragmenting over the past few generations, land ownership remains highly concentrated, with an estimated 2% of households controlling 30% of the total cultivable land. Besides, middle-sized and small farmers, a large proportion of the rural workforce does not own land, nor does it have enough money to pay upfront cash to lease land. Landless farmers have no choice but to sharecrop or else work as seasonal or daily-wage labourers.
It is these landless farmers, including women, who are the real backbone of our agricultural system, are the ones most marginalised and neglected by agricultural development policies of the past.
Yet, as the agriculture sector is even not considered a part of the formal economy, it is not subjected to any wage or work safety oversight. Many larger farmers have exerted their influence to ensure that their sharecroppers are not mentioned on land revenue records to avoid giving them the meagre protection provided in our tenancy laws. Daily-wage or seasonal agricultural labourers also work without any contracts, often being paid well below the minimum wage.
The need to address the plight of these long neglected landless farmers must not be forgotten when assessing the merit of agricultural development policies. Agricultural growth strategies of the future must avoid mistakes of the past. The so-called Green Revolution in Pakistan was an elite-led and capital-driven strategy which may have boosted yields, but it did little to address rural deprivation and growing food insecurity or to curb rural outmigration.
The PTI has promised to further deregulate the seed market and incentivise farmers to conserve water and adopt regenerative agriculture. It wants to optimise existing subsidy programmes, reduce input costs, improve access to finance, champion mechanisation and incentivise value-addition for exports.
PPP to protest against govt’s ‘anti-farmer policies’
However, how the above measures can help improve the lives of our poorest landless farmers is not evident. If experience is anything to go by, new subsidy initiatives will be captured by larger farmers. Many similar schemes, such as tractor and tube well subsidies, often did not benefit smaller farmers, who still had to rent tractors and tube wells which big landlords of Punjab and Sindh had acquired using government subsidies. Even if some of the announced PTI benefits do reach middle-sized or smaller farmers, the plight of the landless poor will remain unaddressed.
Many prominent PTI advisers and ministers have vested interests in the agriculture sector. They own sugar mills and large corporate farms, which may help their owners make impressive profits, but they do little to address the plight of landless labourers employed by them.
Like its predecessors, the PTI is also keen to draw foreign investors into the agriculture sector. Foreign investments in agriculture may help generate more agricultural revenues, but how it will help improve local food security, or address the plight of our landless agricultural labourers, remains unanswered.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 30th, 2018.