PARTLY FACETIOUS: What’s a lose-lose crop?

“So, how do you revive cotton output?”

“I guess you use higher yield variety of seeds, you make sure that…that…”

“What?”

“Well that the weather conditions are just right and yes I do understand that our policymakers cannot really ensure that, what with the fact that Pakistan is a climate distressed country leading to frequent floods and all.”

“Severely distressed.”

“Right severely.”

“But that’s not the right answer, or at least the answer I was looking for! You want to take another guess.”

“Provide incentives to the growers to divert acreage from other crops to cotton, but the International Monetary Fund has barred us from…”

“IMF be damned. But wouldn’t there be a shortage of other crops? Sugar particularly.”

“Sugar plays a major role in our Large Scale Manufacturing sector and I find it to be a lose-lose crop for the general public – a bumper crop has led to successive governments giving an export subsidy subject to prices remaining constant in the country (possible only if supply is adequate to meet demand) and invariably the mill-owners overstate the surplus and export more which leads to a shortage of sugar in the local market and prices go up…”

“All at the taxpayers’ expense. The export subsidy, the incentives, and subsidy for the general public to keep prices affordable and…”

“How about an amendment to the constitution: no one can stand for any public office if he or she has a mill in the family, and we need to define family to include children, cousins and…”

“What about benami…”

“Shut up. Anyway, going back to how one can revive the cotton crop, you will be happy to realise that the man of action has stepped in and taken policy decisions to revive the cotton output.”

“Who the agriculture minister?”

“He is not the man of action.”

“The Finance Minister?”

“No, the deputy prime minister – the man of action (MoA).”

“Hamm, I reckon you can now get a ticket from the PML-N high command — you have finally been convinced of MoA’s true utility.”

“Are you being facetious?”

“Good heavens no, though I have always wanted to get a party ticket and…”

“Ahhhhh.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025