EDITORIAL: Of all the ideas being tossed around these days, from all quarters, to control deficits and rescue the economy, some of the smartest came out of the Agri Connections 2023 conference in Karachi recently; which ended with a set of policy recommendations aimed at turning Pakistan from a “victim of high global agri-commodity prices to a beneficiary” within a decade.

Former SBP (State Bank of Pakistan) governor and keynote speaker Syed Salim Raza hit the nail on the head when he stressed that development of the agriculture sector was the smartest way to claw out of the current economic crisis, and that its growth rate needed to be enhanced from 2.5 percent to 6 percent.

If the government can enforce necessary reforms and develop the sector on modern lines, “the food trade deficit will be eliminated in three years and a production surplus can be achieved in another three years,” he argued.

This makes a lot of sense. Our natural comparative advantage always lay in agriculture, after all, and it was only because no administration took the trouble of keeping up with the times and modernising it that we dropped from being a net food exporter to a desperate importer.

Even now, as we continue to lose production area and crop yield, there is no serious, binding programme to stop this trend.

Let’s not forget that the agri sector not only employs the largest number of people and has the most households attached to it, and provides the nation with its food, but also feeds the vital export sector.

And while why nothing has been done to expand and add value to the export basket is a question for another time, there’s no denying that poor agri performance drags down production and exports as well.

That explains why one of the points discussed at the conference was the need for standardisation, the starting point in identifying supply chain stakeholders as well as training programmes for farmers.

It was also pointed out, for very good reason, that mechanisation will be important in areas where labour is in excess and also where it is not, stressing that employing modern technology will not cut jobs but create new ones.

Right now, because of lack of automation and mechanisation, it was pointed out by the secretary of the board of investment, “we lose 12-13 percent of wheat yields”, and that it makes for “about $200 million in value and we (also) lose about $500 million in post-harvest losses”.

Then there’s the matter of inadequate infrastructure. There are very few laboratories and hence poor-quality seeds, which knock local farmers out of the competitive international market even before the seasonal cycle starts.

Surely, all this is no longer acceptable. It’s bad enough that we’ve allowed such a precious natural advantage to go waste just because of the limited vision and corrupt practices of successive governments. But it’s much worse to refuse to wake up to reality even now; when the economy has all but collapsed and there is very little elbow room left.

The country clearly needs to go right back to basics and reinvigorate the one sector it has been naturally blessed with.

The first step should no doubt be dragging it into the 21st century and giving it a thorough, countrywide technological makeover. Only then can other pieces of the puzzle be put into their right places one by one.

This is going to be a long process, which will begin to show results after a few years. But that only increases the urgency of starting reforms immediately. The economy is truly in a fight for survival; and in such times, time is one luxury you do not have.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023