Capitalising climatic diversity for achieving enhanced crop production

For the last four weeks, inflation particularly of tomato, onion, chili pepper and potato is once again in the hot news. Inflation, a phenomenon whereby the prices of everything persistently increases, and the value of money or the purchasing power of people declines, is one of the major problems being faced by Pakistan for more than the last one year.

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, food inflation in the country has been estimated to be 5.13pc during the period from 2011 to 2019, but surprisingly, the cost of food in our country increased markedly by about 16.5% in November 2019 compared with that in the preceding year. The November witnessed a record high price of tomato, onion and potato. The overarching situation, on one hand is considered an outcome limited supply in the fruit and vegetable market and on the other hand, an exploiting role of middleman cannot be ruled out as limited supply in the market had activated the holders to make abundant storage and capture the market price at their will. According to the latest SBP statistics and inflation data of regional countries, it is interesting but at the same time ironic that Pakistan had witnessed highest food inflation as 16.5 percent in the region followed by Bangladesh 6%, Afghanistan 4% and India 3.5% during the same period that really deserves to be looked into.

This year, tomato made a new record of surging price from 250 to 300 rupees per kilogram that landed the whole country particularly the average households in panic zone. Generally, there are two causes of inflation; one is demand-pull factor that people have more money to buy the things that is not the case in Pakistan as per capita income of Pakistan is not as good as that in some other countries. This, after paying a huge amount in utilities, does not allow him savings. Economists express fear that owing to considerably suppressed economic growth and markedly high food inflation, the national poverty ratio may shot-up to over 40 percent by June 2020, which was relatively much low, i.e. 31.3pc in June 2018. In such a situation, this demand-pull factor does not work in Pakistan. On the other hand, cost-push factor is a phenomenon that means the high cost of production causes cost escalation that needs to be considered for policy formulation. The government should seriously work as to how they can net the growing cost of production by implementation of rules and regulations in the input side of the agriculture sector.

The other thing is that mismanagement further aggravates the situation as our farming community without having a substantial information and awareness about the upcoming marketing trends, high-demand and possible price, they use to follow the previous practice and thus face difficulties in the market during the time when they rush to the market with their produce. Amid market fluctuations, farmers in dire need of fortification. It is pertinent to mention that the middlemen are used to play with crop prices in markets thereby earning more profit compared with the growers. Thus, there is a dire need to overhaul the marketing system so as to safeguard the growers’ interests. Marketing is being contemplated as the feeblest means in the agricultural growth chain, thereby providing a potential platform for the middlemen.

Just reviewing the current scenario of vegetable price link, it is evident that there are certain durations in a year in which prices of tomato, onion, green chili and potato go up that force the consumers to pay high for the commodities. There are numerous intelligent and progressive farmers in Punjab and Sindh, who while keeping in view the previous production data, harness the potential and earn a large sum of profit. There is a room to fill the gap of progressive and subsistence farmers. The rising cost of production needs to be arrested by putting subsidies in place to directly benefit the farmers to dent the cost of production.

In Pakistan, agriculture has been dominated by five crops; wheat, rice, sugarcane, maize, and cotton. It is evident that for the last two decades, the yield of major crops has been stagnant. This may be due to various factors including declining water availability, climatic variability and cultivation of crops in areas that are not suitable for those crops e.g. planting rice in an area more suitable for cotton, gradual changes in soil nutrient status and a lack of true-to-type cultivars. The narrow choice of crops is due to lack of understanding about the scope for more crops and a misallocation of resources. The country so far is unable to take advantage of the diversity of climate and land geographies, and consequently, it has become a net importer of otherwise locally cultivable crops such as fruits, vegetables, pulses and oilseeds, among others. This also shows that the country was spending a huge amount of foreign exchange to import edible oil, pulses, and seeds of many agricultural crops. There is a dire need to not only diversify but also add more crops to the existing cropping systems to achieve sustainability and diversification. The disadvantages and limitations associated with the expansion of cropland make it critically important to know where and how to increase crop yield on existing cropland area. The country is blessed with unique climate diversity of which other countries are far away from plenty of natural bounties that enable the country to produce abundant fruit, vegetables and other crops. Moreover, the annual rainfall in the country varies from 50 mm to 2000 mm.

We have empirical evidence that there was a time when strawberry, olive, and grapes were not considered the crops of central or southern Punjab, but now we are having an abundant produce available in the market in the production season. From October to January onward, the average temperature in most districts of Sindh province like Sukkur, Shahdadkot, Thatta, and Golarchi etc remains mild from 25 to 15 celsius, which is suitable for production of tomato. The average rainfall in the province is between 120 to 200 mm compared to 800 to 1800 mm in central Punjab and upper parts of the country. In view of the mild temperature and climatic suitability, the government should lay its focus on Sindh to meet the growing needs of tomato and other horticultural crops.

Putting a focus on Sindh would help arrest the challenges of shortage and price hike. Such initiatives in Sindh and other provinces, would allow us to have a sufficient year-round availability of essential food items being originally unconceivable, is possible now.

The writer is serving as Vice Chancellor, University of Agriculture Faisalabad. Email addresses ashrafbot@yahoo.com, vc@uaf.edu.pk