Farming woes

Even though agriculture remains our economic backbone, it is unfortunate how little we know about the problems of farmers and the extent to which they struggle for survival. The truth, or at least a small part of it, from our rural stretches was brought into the urban heartland on Thursday as hundreds of angry farmers representing the Pakistan Kissan Ittehad gathered at Thokar Niaz Baig in Lahore and staged a sit-in as police prevented them from entering the city. The farmers were demonstrating against the arrest of around 250 PKI members who had been protesting the Punjab government’s refusal to allow a Kissan Convention at Nishtar Bagh to raise a voice against the over-billing of farmers’ tubewells and increases in fertiliser and pesticide prices. As the stand-off with police continued, the farmers laid out their demands, with Hamza Shahbaz Sharif eventually agreeing to accept these after several rounds of talks between both sides.
The deal reached includes a drop in tubewell rates, a review of prices and a decision that the province would buy all stocks of wheat at the support rate. While a spokesman for the PKI expressed satisfaction over the outcome, it seems unfortunate that it took a protest that brought a city to its knees to achieve this. The grievances of the farmers should have been heard much sooner, when the protests had begun many weeks ago on a smaller scale. It is also true that we care very little about the travails of ordinary farmers. Many are neither huge land owners nor landless peasants, but persons holding small or medium sized tracts of land from which they eke out their living. We need to give them greater attention and also consider the plight of our agricultural sector at a broader level and examine whether it is living up to the potential it possesses. Just this recent case seems to show that this is not the case. We need then to address the reasons for this failure and attempt to resolve them for the sake of all those involved in our massive agricultural sector, particularly the farmers who toil in extremely adverse conditions. Their demands need to be sorted out before even larger protests break out.