Pakistan's economy has undergone considerable diversification over the years, yet the agricultural sector is still the largest sector of the economy. With its present contribution to GDP at 22 percent it accounts for 44.8 percent of the total employed labour force and is the largest source of foreign exchange earnings by serving as the base sector for the country's major industries, like textile and sugar.
It also contributes to growth by providing raw materials as well as being a market for industrial products. What happens, therefore, to agriculture is bound to have a substantial impact on the growth of overall GDP.
Pakistan, as we know, has all the required basic ingredients, such as fertile land, irrigation water, hard working farmers and certified seeds recommended for certain areas. The need of the hour is to utilise them to their full potential, which is only possible if there is a planning by our policy makers.
We are lacking in good management due to shortage of technical expertise and mostly it leads to failure of our food policy. For example previous years experience shows that majority of the farmers failed to get minimum ceiling price of wheat and this create a big gap between demand and supply putting the country in the list of deficient in food. Farmers have not proper storage, packing and distribution facilities.
Today Pakistan's agriculture is facing a lot of problems like low productivity, unfit irrigation water, adulterated chemicals, non-availability of modern technology and many more. Now we are in the era of competition.
World Trade Organization (WTO) has been. Our farmers don't know about the basics of WTO. At present they are not doing as required for the betterment of the agriculture sector. They can bring a revolutionary change in the present system of our agriculture, if they adopt themselves according to the changing circumstances.
Extension workers can play an active role in the present agricultural set up. THE MAIN DUTIES AND FUNCTIONS OF EXTENSION WORKERS ARE:
-- Convincing the farmers about latest techniques.
-- Providing necessary information to the farming community.
-- Exchanging and discussing problems and suggesting remedial measures.
Pakistan is a developing country. Our farmers are not fully aware of the advancements taking place in the world and majority of them are illiterate. They don't have knowledge about the rules and regulations of WTO. They should know how to compete in the world in the WTO regime.
Keeping in view the lack of advanced technology, lack of infrastructure, and non-availability of pre-requisites, the world scenario has created a competitive environment for Pakistan's agriculture sector, which has to be dealt with utmost urgency. In these circumstances extension worker can play a decisive role in promoting agriculture and its allied industry along the lines of WTO rules.
Human resource development is the main tool for enhancing the productivity of our agriculture sector. Unfortunately, our farmers are not in a position to adopt modern tools of farming. Our farmers are not used to it. They are using primitive methods of farming and it is creating a lot of problems for them in enhancement of farm productivity.
Human resource development cannot only increase resource base productivity, but can also play a vital role in reducing the pre and post harvest losses, judicious use of irrigation water, balanced proportion of fertilisers, and recommended doses of pesticides and insecticides. Consequently, we can reduce the per unit cost of output and compete with other developed nations.
The following are some suggestions which are necessary for the betterment of the present conditions of our traditional farmers through the efforts of extension workers.
-- The role of the institutions is very crucial in this case. Government. should start training programmes to effectively train the extension workers regarding their duties.
-- Govt. should keep in contact with the extension workers in order to carry out their duties in an effective way.
-- All the facilities should be provided to them motorcycle, fuel and other requirements. At present no such facilities are provided to them, therefore they are unable to visit every farmer and this is the main dilemma of our present agricultural set-up that their operational budget is almost negligible
Our farmers are using old techniques and don't know about latest techniques of farming. It is the need of the hour to convince them to adopt these latest techniques. The answer to this question is very easy. Extension workers can motivate the farmers by estimating and presenting the profitability of new techniques to the farmers.
Finance is very important for the betterment of the farming business. Extension workers can inform the farmers about various sources of credit (institutional sources) and also suggest them how to use this credit in an effective and productive way.
-- Our farmers are simply ignorant of the recommended application of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and the use of water for irrigation. It is the responsibility of the extension worker to tell them the use of ISO-certified products.
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