Articles of the year 2020
Published on January 06, 2020
The mediocre leadership that Pakistan has indulged in so far is dragging the country down inexorably into becoming a failed state. Precious assets built up in the past have been sold for a pittance. Now even our natural resources are dwindling with no thought of protecting them. The water table has dropped sharply and continues dropping. The crops being planted are damaging our soil, and leading to excessive water consumption while producing products of a lower value. An example is that of sugarcane which has no future as an export commodity. Sugar from Brazil is cheaper than any produced in Pakistan. The land used for its cultivation should be used for higher value crops. The farmers of Pakistan have shown their ability to grow high value crops such as mangos. Their lasting accomplishment has been the successful growth of lychees of exceptional quality equal to the best Chinese varieties. Our dates too are amongst the best in the world.
These are high value crops with mangos fetching £ 10 per kilos and dates reaching up to same £ 10 per kilo in the international market. With the fertile soil of Pakistan’s plains, and the climatic conditions, our industrious farmers are able to grow fruits like kinnus, lychees, dates, mangoes and basmati rice. These are all high value crops and fruits of a variety found only in Pakistan. Farmers need encouragement, in the form financial incentives and subsidies, to grow such fruits and crops.
To give huge cash subsidies to farmers to grow sugarcane is to defeat the long term purpose of such thinking. The result will be soil degradation and high water consumption, whereas the same water and soil could be used for higher value crops. It is no wonder that our farmers are at the bottom of the financial ladder, whilst in other countries farming is prized and the farmer is encouraged to till his land. In fact it has been a most respected form of livelihood since Biblical times.
Thus to have the Jahangir Tareens of our country being given plaudits, encouragement and exceptional financial benefits when he has done nothing special to improve the financial yield per acre or per cubic-foot of water. The agriculture managers of this country must surely examine these water and soil s and value of crops involved before they encourage the likes of the Tareen to be held as an example for other farmers to emulate, for this would only lower the financial yield of the land. It would be better for the farmers to employ more innovative techniques that could deliver a higher value from the same land and region. The farmer is already highly innovative and has the ability to adapt to new crops if convinced that it would benefit him, and his land.
The Tareens of Pakistan are just an example of such political opportunism. The benefits of growing sugarcane are given to a political favorite at the expense of stifling other avenues that could lead better yields per acre in the region. The world is very small, made smaller by the widespread use of the Internet, making instant knowledge available to everyone in every language. So the farmer will use this knowledge to communicate directly about his crops.
The time has come for Imran Khan to apply his Oxford degree towards the encouragement of positive success. He should begin by encouraging heavier investment on local education. The export of manual labor should be discouraged and educational reforms should be employed to improve the level of education. This is the future.
History judges those countries that achieve the highest progress for their people depending on their per capital income. This yardstick should be applied to the land and crop values as well. The Tareens of this world are political opportunists and threaten to create a situation that would be a disaster for the agriculture of a country like Pakistan.
Imran Khan, with his Oxford Degree, is at the pinnacle of the educated males of this world. As a leader he stands alongside Mahathir and Lee Kwan Yew. But his inabilities to fend off the crude PML-N attacks of the Sharifs are inexplicable. Far better perhaps, to dissolve these assemblies of crooks gathered in the name of democracy. These “democrats” with their biased judiciary have by their latest judgment made us the laughing stock of the world. An eminent English lawyer has commented that this judge should be prosecuted and punished for this judgment alone. We fear that this is only a part of the problem and the real problem is the depth of the corruption in the ranks of the judiciary. The screening of the judiciary is now as essential as the screening of the politicians.