Bitter harvest

The spring harvest season is the happiest time of the year in this part of Pakistan. Heralded by the colourful festival of Baisakhi, it marks the onset of a new cycle of abundance after strained supplies and rationed meals. It is the time to harvest wheat and mustard, make matches, perform weddings, and be generally happy. Not this year: a bumper wheat harvest languishes in the open in an unseasonably wet season, with buyers nowhere in sight. First, the government announced its support price after a delay. Now, officials are stalling actual procurement. Private buyers are bent on fleecing the farmer, offering much lower prices. Farmers have hardly any safe storage on hand, so must end up selling their produce at throwaway prices or risk losing it to rot and pilferage. This in a country where wheat flour was in short supply mere months ago – all because the officialdom timed a substantial wheat import to coincide with the harvest. The argument will be that wheat was imported to bridge that chain supply gap, just ahead of the harvest. But the estimates of the shortfall erred on the higher side, so there is a glut in the market right now, just when the harvest is ready for the market. Of course, it will be sold to the public as a goof-up. Nobody will wonder how these rather elaborate goof-ups always occur on the dot, through all political transitions and bureaucratic reshuffles, always to fleece one or more of the working classes, and always to enrich one or more of the rent-seeking robber barons. And, like most such goof-ups, this one too is a string of goof-ups. The government would be within its rights to leave prices to the market, but it must have given farmers adequate prior notice. Consigning them to the market forces in a pinch with the harvest in the fields is nothing short of gunpoint robbery. Worse, the officialdom has failed to provide the farmers adequate quantities of jute bags to store the grain. Particularly disadvantaged in this has been the small farmer, lacking access to the networks of patronage pulling the strings behind the scenes. Another absurdity is officials stalling procurement on the pretext of moisture in grain. The fact is that farmers take great pains to protect their grain from moisture simply because moisture can lead to rot. Of course, fresh harvested grain holds slightly more moisture than, say, grain sundried or stored safely for a time – but that has always been the case. To act as if this circumstance has arisen this harvest out of the blue is therefore disingenuous.

What the architects of this crisis do not realize – or perhaps they do not care – is that it can have serious repercussions for the nation’s food security. Wheat farmers invest a lot of time, effort, and money into sowing, growing, and harvesting the crop. Prices of seed, fertilisers, pesticides, diesel, and electricity have been sky high throughout the season and so they remain. Forcing farmers to sell their produce at below-cost prices exposes them to unacceptable financial losses. But equally, it creates a disincentive to cultivation of wheat next season. It is long past time Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Sharif took a personal interest in the matter to help defuse a potentially hazardous situation not just for the province but also for the whole country – also because the wheat procurement crisis has come hard at the heels of her cheap roti initiative. While her exertions to ensure roti retails at Rs16 apiece are commendable, the brunt of this policy should not fall on the wheat farmer. The federal government must also play its part in helping resolve this matter, considering that all the optimistic takes on Pakistan’s economic outlook rely largely on farm productivity. Anything detrimental to the farm sector is therefore detrimental to Pakistan’s economic prospects. The ongoing crisis is not just a kick in the farmer’s gut, but also one in Pakistan’s proverbial breadbasket.