Given its dramatic upstream and downstream linkages, particularly with the industrial sector, a large impact on balance of payments and highest share in employment, the agriculture sector fails to capture the Government’s attention in terms of formal policy making.

An agrarian economy by far, Pakistan does not have a formal “Agriculture Policy”. Although, constitutionally, agriculture is a provincial responsibility, national issues such as the import and export of agricultural inputs and products, price setting, standardization and quarantine issues, national research and inter provincial issues such as the rehabilitation, operation and maintenance of primary irrigation structure come under the nexus of the Federal Government. The absence of a concise agriculture policy, and the recent devolution of the Ministry (Ministry of Food and Agriculture) at the federal level have compounded the problems of this already vulnerable sector. However, the situation also presents opportunities for donors such as IFAD and World Bank to provide support to provinces in the development of respective Agriculture policies.

Key challenges faced by the agricultural sector (also highlighted in the Pakistan COSOP document-2009) include;  (i) stagnating yields, (ii) wide yield gaps between progressive and average farmers, (iii) an inadequate supply of water and the inefficient use of available water resources, (iv)the poor quality and inadequate supply of inputs,(v) poor rural infrastructure, (vi)inefficient research and extension services, (vii) frequent insect and pest attacks, (viii)a high incidence of crop and livestock diseases, (ix)lack of capital and financial resources and (x) lack of international competitiveness of some agricultural commodities.

Agriculture and food security form vital elements of Government planning. All important planning documents including the Framework for Economic Growth,   “Vision 2030”, the Medium-Term Development Framework 2005-2010, and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper II (PRSP-II) pay significant attention to the role of agriculture. However, these plans cannot and should not be considered a sufficient substitute for a comprehensive agriculture policy.

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Farming in the developing countries, including South Asia has taken positive turns by employing improved methods such as use of chemicals, crop management and machinery. However, the latest trends now include incorporating cellular technology in agriculture and livestock management which is seen to be benefitting farmers with enhanced agricultural productivity and improved market linkages.

For instance, in India, mobile technology for agriculture has been underway for the past few years with discussions now leading into equipping farmers with smartphones. One such example is the ‘Intuit Fasal’ service that connects rural farmers with buyers and provides them with real-time price information via mobile phone. The service currently has more than 500,000 users who earn an average of 20% more income thanks to the technology[1].

Although lagging behind, similar trends are now being developed in Pakistan where Agriculture is the mainstay of the country accounting for 23 percent of the total GDP while employing 45 percent of the labor force.  Most of this labor force however, constitutes of subsistence farmers living in far flung areas and often isolated from market information resulting in critical communication gaps with commodity wholesalers. To address this information gap and other problems faced by the farmers, Telenor Pakistan in partnership with the provincial government of Khyber PukhtunKhwa  is expected to launch a mobile service in April 2012 – the first of its kind in a country that boasts cellular teledensity of 67.2 percent[2].

According to Telenor, the service is aimed at small farmers specifically, enabling them to make informed decisions when it comes to agriculture and livestock planning and trading. The information will be provided via push SMS, voice recordings and small community gatherings on topics including: weather forecasts, access to best quality commodities, latest agri trends, judicious use of pesticides and fertilizers, best breed of livestock, new methods of disease control, and quality feed and fodder[3].

The initiative is likely to empower farmers economically and contribute to overall poverty alleviation. Future roll outs to other provinces are planned within the same year

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UNDP wants to undertake a study of access to services for rural livelihoods, looking at four townships (Hakha, Nyaung Shwe, Labutta, Kyauktaw) to map:

• The relationship between households and markets (other villages, township and sub-regional markets); and
• The relationship between households and technical and administrative services (local government and other institutions including private sector and NGOs).

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The purpose of this assignment is to undertake an impact

assessment that will focus on highlighting all changes as a result of this project intervention. The assessment will help to recognize and document evidence of:

• Intended and unintended project achievements;
• Evidence of positive and negative impacts; and
• In the context of the Impact any setbacks due to the project.

As a course of the assessment, a team of of Cynosure Consultants is visiting district Sanghar and Dadu (Sindh) and district Musa Khel (Balochistan)

.

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In one future, the opportunity this offers will be seized. It is possible to imagine Pakistan as an economic powerhouse, helping to fuel sustainable, global economic growth. Of course, there is another future for Pakistan in which the size and youth of its population become a burden rather than an asset. This second future would be devastating for Pakistan and deeply problematic for the global community.

What will determine which of these futures will unfold for Pakistan? A number of factors will play a part, including regional and global geopolitics, but what has struck me forcibly in conversations I have had with Pakistani business, community and political leaders over the last year is that, with one voice, they say the single most important factor will be education.
At present, Pakistan doesn’t have a good education system. Indeed, we must admit that the current education system is very poor.

However as poor Pakistan’s education system may be now, it would be perfectly possible to successfully transform it over a generation. The fatalism that grips too many of Pakistan’s leaders when they consider the education system, needs to be swept away. Recent history provides a number of success stories around the world; stories of invigorated education systems where sustained reform has liberated and empowered millions of people and transformed economies.
Research my colleagues and I have done explores the experience of school systems that embarked on their reform journey from a variety of different starting points. For Pakistan, most relevant is the experience of those systems in our sample that have successfully moved from poor to at least fair performance. From our analysis, three lessons can be drawn.

First, when the quality of education is very low, sharply defined programmes are needed to support students in achieving basic standards of literacy and numeracy.

Second, reforms must be sustained over time, with standards only improving if a critical mass of intervention is applied across the system, and with consistency, rigour, and discipline.

And third, the reform process must itself be ignited, whether in the wake of a crisis, or after a high-profile report exposes how serious failures are, or when an energetic and visionary leader takes personal responsibility for delivering change.

The results from a determined programme of reforms are remarkable. Minas Gerais, Brazil’s third largest state, has half a million children in primary school. In 2006, an assessment found that fewer than half of eight year olds had reached the recommended standard for reading. The governor set a goal for improving this to 90 percent in just four years, with this target translated into school-level targets which were widely communicated to the public. Teachers were provided with lesson plans and workbooks for all their students, and offered sizeable bonuses if their school met its target. 73 percent of children met the reading standard in 2008 and 86 percent by 2010. In just four years, Minas Gerais achieved the best student outcomes of all Brazilian states.
Madhya Pradesh also took a regimented approach when the state’s chief minister launched its ‘Learn to Read’ programme in 2005 after it discovered that literacy standards in its schools were very low. It rolled out a standardised teaching model across its systems of 138,500 schools, while mandating that the 17 million students in those schools should spend two hours a day on literacy. Again, the results were impressive, with the proportion of 11 year-olds who could read a story increasing from 86 percent to 95 percent.

Ghana provides another example of a country that began its reform journey by attempting to drive standards up to a minimum level. It also made rapid strides in increasing access. In 2004/05, only 59 percent of children went to primary school, a similar level of enrolment to that seen in Pakistan today. By 2008/09, 89 percent children were in school, while almost all children had textbooks, student health had improved, and free meals were given to poorer students.
So we can say with certainty that rapid progress is possible, even in a dysfunctional education system like Pakistan’s. But what begins the process of reform?

Our research suggests that countries that have ignited reforms, and implemented them faithfully over time, rely on at least one of three events to get them started. A political or economic crisis may force a rethink, as governments scramble to carve a new path to a prosperous and secure future. A ground-breaking report can bring home the seriousness of a country’s educational challenges, shaking the status quo and leaving the government with ‘nowhere to hide’. Or an energetic and visionary leader can take upon him or herself the duty of driving reform. Of all these factors, leadership, whether political (president, prime minister, chief minister) or strategic (minister or secretary of education), is by far the most important.

Now is the time for leadership to overcome its fear of failure. The Pakistan Education Task Force has worked hard to create the energy needed for the March for Education campaign.
Leaders need to suspend disbelief, to have the courage to start. They need to take lessons from around the world and apply them systematically. They will work. In 2010, we saw the first steps in the right direction; in 2011 we will see real progress on the ground. People will begin to believe success is possible in Pakistan too.

The writer is co-chair of the Pakistan Education Task Force. Previously, he served British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government as his Chief Adviser for Delivery. Website: www.educationemergency.com.pk

(Source: Opinion, The News, 15 March 2011)

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He added that under the Constitution, education for every child in the age group five to 16 was compulsory. Maj Gen Ramday said thousands of children in Swat alone were being sent by their parents to work at workshops and hotels and do other odd jobs instead of going to schools. He said it was high time the government implemented in letter and spirit the laws eradicating child labour and facilitating access to quality education.

He said the project would enrol those children in these schools who were victims of child labour. He added that necessary corrective measures would be undertaken by the government and the local administration against parents not sending their children to schools to acquire education. Speaking on the occasion, Colonel Arif said it was the collective responsibility of the nation to motivate and encourage parents to send children to school instead of using them as child labour.

(Source: National News, The News, 15 March 2011)

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In recent years, fisheries sector has played a significant role in the economic uplift of the people in rural Pakistan, particularly, southern Sindh, since it is a labour –intensive, swift-yielding sector which augments growth and also reduces the pervasive poverty. Around 1.5 million individual fishermen and family members thereby provide direct employment support to nearly 6.0 million citizens across the country.

Pakistan is endowed with immense innate potential for developing the fisheries sector but unfortunately the fisheries sector has not been accorded desirable priority in the national development programmes. It contributes only 0.3 per cent to overall gross domestic product (GDP), 1.3 per cent to agricultural GDP and less than 1 per cent to national employment. The sources include rivers, irrigation canals, flood plains, large depressions, and ponds dispersed throughout Sindh province offering considerable potential for fish cultivation, but a general lack of capital, access to resources and knowledge means that many farmers are unable to provide all the commercial inputs required for intensive production methods. An alternative low-cost approach is more appropriate for many people, relying on existing water bodies and natural vegetation and household waste, supplemented with animal protein in the form of snails and homemade supplements for fish feed.

For many people in Sindh, small-scale fish farming (known as aquaculture) is an important opportunity to generate income and is a significant nutritional source providing protein-rich food all year round. It comprises of a range of options that can be adapted to suit the needs and capacity of people living in rural Pakistan. The two approaches commonly implemented on a small scale include, local pond fish farming and open water fish farming in lakes, rivers, dams and reservoirs. The benefit to low-income farmers is that they are able to invest in fish cultivation when there is sufficient income, which will then be able to generate additional income and food when other sources of income are limited.

Fish catches are reported the highest in the aftermath of the recent floods in Sindh, especially from those districts which have remained unaffected by the devastating flooding. On the contrary, the entire infrastructure of ‘pond fishing’ coupled with the huge investment made by the small entrepreneurs and progressive farmers in the flood-hit districts has been washed away. So far nothing has been done to compensate those farmers and fishermen in southern Sindh.

Investments in vessels and fishing gear continue to be a challenge because of escalating global prices. Banks are reluctant to provide credit for investment in the sector, which they consider more risky than agriculture. Unlike farming, where you can see the crops, the potential of the seas and rivers is not obvious to the untrained eye. However, the banks may be directed to provide loans to the fishermen and progressive farmers for fish farming on soft terms.

Perhaps the most disconcerting developments have been the increasing incidence of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the country. This is a problem that threatens to deplete fish stocks in the country. The level of illegal fishing in Pakistan, particularly in Sindh, is amazing. The over-exploitation of coastal waters means that the local fishermen are compelled to go out for longer periods and to more distant grounds, which increases their operating costs. Their catches are also often smaller, reducing their profitability, and forcing many fishermen into debt and increasing their vulnerability.

On land, deforestation means that the wood that has long been used to build traditional canoes is becoming scarce and more expensive. Some fishermen have resorted to imported fibreglass canoes, which last longer, but the initial investment and maintenance costs are higher. All of these factors are affecting the profitability of many family businesses. At a time of rising global food prices, they also threaten the food security of entire communities.

The potential effects of these developments are frightening. As fisherfolk lose their means of earning a livelihood, this could create serious socio-economic problems, particularly in Sindh and Baluchistan, where people will lose their main source of export earnings, and of protein. Worse still, there are very few alternatives for the fishermen and their families.

Overall, the provincial governments need to work together with the private sector to channel more investment into various forms of infrastructure. In both coastal and inland fisheries, these would include landing sites, cold units, road and transport systems and marketing facilities. Across the country, the government needs to develop its capacities to catch and process their own fish. This will help ensure that revenues and economic rent generated by the sector are reinvested into development interventions.

To maintain and further enhance the contribution of fisheries to food security and poverty reduction, the world bodies in collaboration with the provincial governments of Sindh and Baluchistan need to restore depleted fisheries and significantly improve the livelihoods of coastal communities in Sindh and Baluchistan. The World Bank and Global Environment Facility are committed to working with the coastal communities in Sindh and Baluchistan provinces to help improve the livelihoods of rural fishing communities and the health of the fish stocks they depend on. They are looking forward to a long partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Wide Fund in this effort.

The present government seems determined to take numerous initiatives including offering infrastructure, credit and research and extension facilities in the rural Pakistan. However, the government should also set up hatcheries in partnership with the private sector wherever feasible throughout the country. In this context, it is expected from the media houses and non-governmental organisations to undertake programmes to motivate fishermen so that they raise their production.

Since the fisheries sector has great potential to spur economic development, it can offer more employment opportunities and reduce poverty among the local population in rural Pakistan, particularly, Sindh, Baluchistan and in Seriaki region of the Punjab. To make sure that fishing better helps reduce poverty, it is also important to target enterprise-support programmes, credit institutions and technical assistance towards small-scale fishers and women fish processors.

In order to promote effective fisheries strategies and policies at the country level there is a need to establish a new programme for sustainable fishing. Initiatives such as these must be replicated across rural Pakistan if the country is to harness the full promise of its fisheries to strengthen the national economy, reduce poverty and improve people’s food security and nutrition. Poverty reduction and improvement of the livelihoods of the poorest of the poor has been one of the major development goals of the present government, therefore the need of the hour is to develop fish farming on scientific lines in Pakistan so that the future of poverty-stricken people may be changed.

(Source: Business and Finance Review, The News, 14 March 2011)

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Unsafe loading and unloading of fertiliser and wheat at once at the congested marginal wharf at Port Qasim is resulting in the cross-contamination of edible and non-edible commodities. It is feared that if not stopped immediately this cross-contamination may result in termination of wheat export orders.

Understandably, contamination if taking place as a result of mixture of wheat particles in fertiliser is not harmful. On the contrary, if the process is reversed, then obviously wheat turns out to be lethal for human consumption.

Private cargo handling companies undertake cargo, bulk, and break bulk handling operations at the marginal wharf that has four berths of 200-metre each. Total length of all berths at the marginal wharf comes to around 800 metres. PQA claims this particular area can accommodate 55,000 deadweight tonnage vessels. It is worthwhile to note that marginal wharf was designed in a way to handle seven million tonnes per annum, a rough 27 per cent of total load handled at Port Qasim in a year.

The handling operations at the wharf are not modern to the extent of preventing contamination of wheat by urea. They are not containerised shipments and both wheat and fertiliser are packed in sacks normally. Wheat pouring out of bags and urea lying unattended are perceptibly visible a daily scene at the marginal wharf. Traditional ways of handling general and bulk cargoes are in practice at the wharf. Fork lifters, cranes, hoppers, and evacuators are used to handle cargoes. Fork lifters and cranes pulling up and down sacks of fertiliser and wheat give rise to the pollutions. After all, they are not dedicated to deal with a specific commodity.

As handling of both the commodities is taken place at the same time or at least at the same place, it is very difficult to stave off cross-contamination. The unhygienic treatment of food is a sheer violation of the environment protection laws in Pakistan. Besides, this may lead to a considerable economic loss in case importers cancel wheat consignments. Revenue from exports is much needed for the cash-strapped economy of Pakistan that is under a strict loan programme of IMF owing to the balance of payments crisis. Rise in exports can alone reduce the trade deficit and navigate the economy out of the rough water.

The question arises why PQA is using marginal wharf in the presence of other terminals handling dry bulk cargo. According to sources, cargo-handling companies have made a cartel with the patronage of the top officials of PQA to keep a hold over the port operations. The marginal wharf is the stronghold of the cartel, which frustrates any attempt that is made to shift handling operations from the wharf to the newly established bulk cargo-handling terminal. The shift will augur well with the overall efficiency of the port because of the modern facilities deployed at the terminal to handle grain and fertiliser. The terminal, known as Fauji Akbar Portia Marine Terminals Limited (FAP) has a capacity to handle dry bulk cargoes of 4.1 million metric tonnes per annum and is able to cater Panamax size vessel of up to 80,000 deadweight tonnage. Best of all, this terminal with automatic cargo handling and discharging services has enclosed conveying systems highly sensitive to environments. The computerised high capacity bulk ship unloader with a discharge rate of 700 to 1,000 metric tonnes per hour minimises the chances of cross- contamination of cargoes or spillage. In addition, the terminal has dedicated steel silos that can store up to 80,000 metric tonnes of a single product. These silos are connected to a bagging plant that can bag at the rate of 600 tonnes per hour.

It is interesting to note that TCP had selected FAP as the sole handler of 100,000 tonnes of imported fertiliser. However, it aborted the contract on the order of Sindh High Court. Basically, the qualification of FAP was challenged in the court by a private company on the base of the former’s insufficient experience in cargo handling. A cargo handling company has to have a three-year experience as per the local shipping law.

Stevedoring licences are issued to companies with mobile assets while FAP has fully automated facilities from berths up to the silos, he pointed out. It seems the terminal is being punished for it having modern facilities that challenge the status quo of the conventional players at the port.

Apart from discouraging private sector, the present state of affairs at the Port Qasim will bedevil the future of food exports from Pakistan. Especially, cross-contamination issue should be resolved at the earliest. The delay in addressing this issue does not make sense. It is advisable that the ministry of port looks into the matter as early as possible before wheat exports from Pakistan come under the hardboiled scrutiny in an importing destination.

(Source:  Business & Finance Review, The News, 14 March 2011)

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“Food Security is significantly important for all of us and agricultural practices need to be updated in the context of the climatic changes,” said Mir Israrullah Zehri, Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, before leaving for Indonesia to attend the ministerial conference on biodiversity, food security and climate change. In the backdrop of drastic climatic changes, updating agricultural practices are the need of the hour as to ensure food security in Pakistan, a senior government official said on Wednesday.

He stressed upon timely weather forecasts and understanding the issue of the weather changes followed by an awareness campaign for the farming community.

Zehri, who is visiting Indonesia on the invitation of Indonesian minister of agriculture said, the climatic changes, which resulted into floods and severe temperatures have significant importance for the agriculture sector of the country.

“We need new ways to ensure food security in the era of climate change. Delegates from across the world will share research-based information on the climate change and tools to cope with it. We can bring in new ideas by our interaction and information sharing on the climate change at international fora,” he said.

Zehri said that Indonesia is the front runner on the issue of climate change and need appreciation for their dedicated efforts towards achieving food security.

(Source: The News – 10 March 2011)

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