Going, going, gone

Very few people are prepared to accept that a change of cropping patterns is essential if agriculture is to survive.

Life on the razor edge of impossibility has, for the legions of subsistence farmers, who are struggling to survive in the rugged uplands of northern Pakistan, always been an uphill battle. The delicate balance between good years and bad, where just about managing to balance the scales of survival is difficult enough, is made further difficult by the rapidly escalating climate change situation.

“We faced total crop failure this year,” says Jahanzeb Shah who, along with his interrelated tribe, hacks out a tenuous living in the upper reaches of Alai Valley, north and east of Battagram District. “It was a long winter, so planting time was delayed but by then, the weather was too dry. The grass, too, has failed us this year,” he relates, going on to explain that “even if rains come now” — the summer monsoon does not always reach this area — “the grass will not be enough to see our few animals through to next winter. We will have to try and sell some off but they are already thin, so prices will be bad and the fact that everyone else will be doing the same means that the dealers who come will pay very little at all.”

Traditional crops — cultivated throughout the upland regions of the country, since time immemorial — of inter-planted corn, beans and cucumbers have germinated badly and grown little which, in turn, means that if they produce at all, there will be little to harvest, the quality will be poor and the seed stock kept for the following season will be of correspondingly inferior quality.

“There have, of course, been bad years before this,” he continues, “but these were always followed by productive ones so, even though it was hard, we were able to manage. But these last few years have all been bad, so we have nothing left to fall back on which is why, I and some other male relatives are now travelling south in search of paid work.”

It has long been the practice for, at least, one man from each household in these tough areas of the country to find paid employment away from home. The money sent back was used for basic necessities which are, unlike decades ago, no longer home produced. There is the need for instant communication, which has come of age. Items like cell phones need to be paid for. Plus, there are the never-ending treks to and from Battagram and Abbottabad, to consult doctors and pay for medicines and medical treatment.

The people of Alai, not being familiar with changing global weather patterns, blame their agricultural problems on the massive earthquake of October 2005, which devastated the region. “That must have done something to the weather,” observes Jahanzeb. “Ever since then, crops have been declining year by year and at this rate, in another year or two, it won’t be worth going through the trouble of harnessing a buffalo, ploughing our terraced fields, putting in seed and waiting to see what comes up because nothing will grow.”

Farmers, throughout the country, are increasingly facing an array of climate change-related agricultural problems. Yet, very few are prepared to accept that a change of cropping patterns — indeed of crops themselves — is essential if agriculture, which is the country’s backbone, is to survive. Whilst large-scale agricultural concerns in the plains may get the benefit of expert advice, subsistence farmers will be left to go to the wall.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2013.                                                                                          

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