Short-term Strategic Plans to overcome Limitations in Agricultural Growth

             Short-term Strategies:

Food security has basically three dimensions; adequacy of food supply, access to food, and equity of food distribution. All these dimensions require special interventions and enabling environment for ensuring household food security. Following are the policy and strategic options recommended by the United Nations System in Pakistan to reduce food insecurity:

i.            Sustainable and efficient utilization of the natural resources ƒ

·         Land: Land related problems like depleting soil fertility, soil erosion, water logging and salinity needs immediate attention to achieve yield potential of crop. The other option is to take up new lands for agriculture. At the moment there is about 4 million acres land in the riverine belt of the country which should be distributed among local landless peasants. These are virgin lands where there is no shortage of moisture. The special conditions attached to these areas, especially bio-diversity have to be taken into consideration. 

·         Water: The efficient and effective use of irrigation water is most crucial to the future of Pakistan. It is also necessary that the government should plan for the future needs, taking into account agricultural, domestic, and industrial demand of the future and impact on the environment. There is urgent need for the government to ensure adequate and timely availability of water for farming to enhance food production and availability.  The lowering of the water table is a serious issue in Balochistan, where the installation of large number of tubewells for irrigation is the main factor. Efficient utilization will not only promote food production, but also ensure the sustainable use of the ground water. In arid areas of the country like Cholistan, Tharparker and greater part of Balochistan, efficient rainwater utilization can be done through better water harvesting techniques and more efficient use of the available water resources. In the Rod-Kohi and dry mountainous areas, rainwater harvesting, storage and management including increasing the capacity of the main reservoirs should be given higher priority. 

ii.            Proper application of physical inputs

·         Seed: Improved seed is one of the important factors in crop productivity enhancement, but unfortunately this category of seed coverage is within low range of 14-20% for wheat and other major food crops. The productivity of the food crops can be substantially enhanced through increased use of quality seed. 

·         Fertilizer: Proper use of organic and inorganic fertilizers is also critical for maintaining soil fertility to enhance agriculture productivity. Fertilizers should be used according to the site-specific requirements of crops. The current use of plant nutrients is not only imbalanced and inadequate, but inefficient as well. The use of organic and inorganic fertilizer needs to be encouraged in an integrated manner. 

·         Credit: Due to the financial limitations, the small farmers are largely dependent on credit to procure agriculture inputs. The existing credit procurement system is complicated and not in easy access to small farmers. There is an immediate need to simplify such procedures. The agriculture loan should be broad based, and flexible enough to provide credit for variety of agriculture related activities. Credit should be extended to the rural non-farm households, including rural poor, landless farmers and women for their income generation.  .

·         Pesticides: There is indiscriminate use of pesticides for plant protection. Integrated Pest Management should be promoted for sustainable plant protection. In this regard, policy changes have to be made, and effective implementation arrangement has to be put in place. 

iii.            Productivity enhancement of major food crops

·         Wheat: The yield range for the wheat is in the range of 0.8 to 5.5 tons per ha. This clearly indicates that through improved management the gap can be reduced, and correspondingly substantial increase would be obtained in the production. In view of the special concern for food security, a quick and sustainable increase in wheat productivity is essential. 

·         Rice: The yield of rice is about 2.0 tons/ha against expected yield of 2.56 tons/ha. This increase in yield could be easily achieved through good management practices at farm level. Rice productivity can be increased through increasing plantation intensity, mechanized transplanting and reducing post harvesting losses. The strategic option for the rice would be to increase the productivity of the crop, while keeping the same area  under this crop due  to its high water requirement.

·         Maize: This crop is mainly grown in the rain-fed areas of KPK and Punjab. The current production level is about 1.7 million tons. Maize can play an important role in food security as it is grown in poor areas of the country (the mountainous and rainfed areas), which are generally food insecure. The potential of maize to contribute towards more nutritive food for human consumption is high. Presently, the maize yield is far below its potential (1.5 vs.10-12 tons/ha) which should be enhanced.

·         Oil seed: The local production of the oil seed is low, and the country imports a large quantity to fulfill the demand of the fast growing population. There is a need to exploit the potential of the oil crops by creating more attractive and conducive environment through the establishment of an effective marketing system of oil seed crops, besides bringing new varieties of high yield. 

iv.            Identification and targeting the food insecure people

ƒ In the context of access to food, it would be important to identify the food insecure people, who are financially poor and are unable to  acquire sufficient food, even if the overall supply of food in the country is sufficient, and to improve co-ordination, information and statistical data on food insecure and vulnerable groups.

v.            Diversification of on-farm and off-farm income generation activities

ƒ In order to raise the financial capability of the poor specially women to have purchasing power for the essential food items, diversification of income both from on-farm and off- farm should be encouraged. There is great scope and potential of increasing yields of short-term cash crops, like vegetable items produced and marketed in the nearest urban areas. This is especially the case with lands situated in the urban and peri-urban areas where proximity to large towns enables an efficient marketing strategy. This can be further integrated into livestock and small ruminant development. This would require the integrated development of the farming system as a whole. 

vi.            Stabilization of input and output prices

ƒ Keeping in view, the poor financial situation of the food insecure people, it would be required to put in place input and price polices in such a way to rationalize the prices of both inputs and outputs. Sudden and drastic changes and fluctuations would definitely affect poor to have access to food. At the top of it is to give the farmer a fair return in the market place.

vii.            Inter-regional and urban-rural disparity

ƒ In spite of adequate food production at the national level, severe food shortages have been experienced in certain parts of the country. These food shortages are considered to be the most significant threat to food security in these areas. Besides, growing urban populations coupled with decreased economic activities has resulted in massive urban slums with millions of food insecure people including female-headed households. Similar population increases in rural areas has exasperated the food insecurity situation. The traditional coping mechanisms of rural societies are severed in the urban areas with little or less reliable substitutes. This adds a drastic complication to the food insecure urbanites. Investments in agriculture and related rural infrastructure would sustain more population in the rural areas thus benefiting the immediate area as well as relieving urban areas of future immigrants. 

viii.            Distribution of land and access to the resources and inputs

ƒ The distribution of land resource is skewed. In addition, large farmers have easier access to resources like water, and credit. Small farmers suffer from resource starvation. Even within the small farmer category, there is a case for improving the conditions of the poorest of the poor i.e. those that own one hectare or less. Therefore more emphasis should be made to facilitate easy access of the majority of small farmers to the land, water and other essential agriculture inputs. This will help in the overall agriculture growth of the country.

ix.            Gender inequity

ƒ Inequity is greatly reflected in gender. In the rural areas, the women are generally uneducated, and the male members control the resources, in spite of the fact that the female contributes a lot of labour for food production. In this way they are unable to maintain their own assets. It will be required to focus more on women and children, especially girls to bring them at par with other members of the family. 

x.            Skill development and exposure to the development

ƒ Skill development and capacity building are important factors for equity. Welltrained farmers will have more confidence for undertaking small food related enterprises, which would help in their economic uplift. Efforts have to be made to develop capacity of the farmers (both male and female) for undertaking small businesses and enterprises. 

xi.            Improving the nutritional aspects of food 

ƒ Ensuring the food security for household is not only related to availability, but also whether the food fulfils the nutritional requirement of its consumer. Through balance diet and good food quality and removal of gender inequity, the nutritional aspects of the food security can be enhanced. Exploring and promoting cheaper alternatives for nutritional requirement is a necessity.

xii.            Vegetable and Pulses Production

ƒ In order to provide the required proteins and vitamins, it will be important to promote household vegetable production in the form of kitchen gardens. Poor and small farmers do not have the financial resource to buy these items from the open market, and they heavily rely on cereal, which fulfills the caloric requirement of the body, but lack the nutritional part of it. Growing vegetables and pulses will compensate for the nutritional value of the food. Similarly pulses can compensate for meat, which is generally beyond the purchasing power of poor farmers.

xiii.            Rural poultry and rearing of small ruminants 

ƒ Rural poultry is another important protein source, which can be promoted for improving nutritional aspect of the diet. In this regard rural poultry have to be brought as potential intervention for the rural areas. It is a women intervention and is known as a widow's industry. The  peri-urban areas could certainly take advantage of this.  Small ruminants are reared mainly by the small farmers and landless. For them it is a source of cash reserve, as well as nutritional resource. The possible interventions would include providing access to credit for such intervention with soft collateral. Also the selection of proper animals according to the terrain and feed availability is helpful.

xiv.            Inland fisheries 

ƒ The field of inland fisheries could bring phenomenal increase in income, as this would be primarily in the urban, peri- urban and in some case where infrastructure exists for peri-rural areas. The private fish farming would be good venue for future investment for the food insecure  areas, especially in the waste and water logged lands.