Turn on, tune in, drop out

As a direct consequence of humankind’s ‘cruelty’ to the planet, nature is increasingly and violently fighting back any which way it can with the most obvious assault being that of drastically altered weather patterns.

Here in Pakistan where, on the whole, last year’s summer temperatures were, on average, less than ‘normal’ and so far, the winter colder and dryer than the average over the last 30 years, these alterations are simply not being taken seriously by either the government or the population at large. The consequences are set to be dire indeed: serious shortages, long-lasting ones, of potable water are just one of the countless facets of this change and water shortages, due to an altered rainfall pattern, have a knock-on, seriously adverse effect on sustainable food supplies as agricultural production will plummet.

The country’s agricultural sector has been criminally ignored by successive governments over the last few years. They have, admittedly, launched various, ridiculously costly, schemes centering on the provision of tractors, chemical fertilisers, toxic pesticides and other such non-essentials. Yet, agricultural production, in terms of per yield per acre, has stagnated at a level which is less than one-third of the production in other ‘developing’ nations and the majority of the produce is lethally contaminated by thoughtless ‘in puts’ against which, finally and not before time, educated people, are rebelling.

This ‘rebellion’, the one that has resulted in ‘organic’ farmers’ markets taking off in leaps and bounds in various cities, heralds an awareness trend that needs to be taken very seriously by government agricultural departments and, as growing organic is leading, in turn, to those involved becoming more aware of sustainability all round — alternative energy, reusable rather than disposable goods, growth of environmental conservation as a whole being just a few examples — to the emergence of a far different kind of lifestyle than was previously considered the ‘norm’.

While currently restricted to a small percentage of the population, this rebellion is expanding by the day and when possible, results in people growing their own, 100 per cent organic, fruit and vegetables, keeping chickens for chemical free eggs and so on down the line to turning their backs on restaurant franchises serving unhealthy food in preference of simple desi foods.

This realisation that chemical ‘anything’ is bad news, bad for humans and the planet both, has taken a very long time to arrive in Pakistan although it has been ‘in’ throughout the Western world since the ‘hippie’ days of the 1960s but where, sad yet true, only a small percentage of the population took up and continues to live in this ‘back to the land’ movement which, if it had been more widespread, would have largely prevented the climate change we are all battling with today.

Pakistan, unless it ‘turns on’ to the harsh reality that change is not an option but a survival ‘must’, and ‘drops out’ of the corporate rat race and all of the pollution, exploitation and self-poisoning this entails, is set to suffer terrible depredations all round. Prevention always being far better than the cure, plus, agricultural practice being the pivot on which the future depends — government agricultural departments, along with private agriculture related practitioners, need to get in the swing before the sands of time — and the weather — press the ‘delete’ key on us all.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2014.

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