MANY have written on the food security issues, but few, if any, have gone to the fields to see for themselves as to what has really happened.

Food security, as it is at the moment, has been handed down to us from the science and technology-based Consultative Group on Integrated Agriculture (CGIAR) and these are located in different parts of the world. But the one we are concerned with is in Mexico that deals with wheat and maize. It started with the green revolution, and Borlaug, the eminent breeder, received his Peace Prize for the work done at that time.

Pakistan followed the dictates, as did India and the rest of the world. The crises at that time were even worse than what it is today. Technology came to the rescue. Understandably the technology, packed by the wheat seed, played its part. It is and will be naïve to think that the green revolution would go on forever.

Even in the first decade, cracks started appearing in the green revolution. India is realising this although their policy-makers continue to vouch for the green revolution. India is now a net importer of wheat as yields in Indian Punjab have deteriorated. The farmers with whom I have interacted were complaining of their “Moghul badshahs” (agricultural scientists) who suited-booted stayed in their posh offices. My concern is not with India but with the situation in Pakistan.

The crop was short last year and this year again is a repeat of the same. Dishonesty keeps one on the wrong track. That is what happened to the government of Shaukat Aziz. They started with production figures of 25 million tons in wheat in 2007 and then brought this figure down to 23 million tons. In fact the production was much less. I went through the surplus districts and came to the conclusion that the production was not more than 17.5 million tons. Even this year the production is less as the farmers have reduced the area under wheat by 30 to 35 per cent. The seven per cent large farmers who trade in wheat produced were cognizant of the fact that wheat productivity is not going to increase.

The small farmer produces only for self-consumption. The cold spell this year went up to Rahimyar Khan. The earring and tillering of the crop was destroyed because of excessive frosty weather conditions. Worse was to follow for the rains in Sindh and lower Punjab have been untimely and the crop has lodged and that means that the lodged wheat would suffer another 25 per cent reduction in productivity.

All the announcements as to production have a proxy check. If the price is extraordinarily high, the production loss is considerable. That is what happened last year and that is what happened this year in Sindh. The ruling price is Rs745 to Rs800 per 40 kg as against the procurement price of Rs625. That means that the procurement would be adversely affected. There are no easy answers.

The prices of inputs have gone very high. No farmer can afford to buy DAP at Rs3,200 for 50 kg. Economics does not allow farmer to use the optimum quantity of fertiliser due to exorbitant cost. With nitrogen at Rs700 per bag of 50 kg you have a double jeopardy. If one bag of each is taken as the minimum requirements, then the cost per acre are about Rs4,000 per acre for the two fertilisers. In actual fact there is requirement for two bags each per acre of DAP and Urea. That means the farmer requires Rs8000 per acre. The story dos not end here for the productivity levels to be at a certain level the increase in fertiliser use must increase by 10 per cent each year, this to keep the production levels of last year.

The debilitating affect of the chemicals is another matter. The soils lose their organic matter by persistent chemical use. Once that happen, the soils become calcareous. Calcareous soils are alkaline and the impact of DAP is used for soils that have developed chronic problems.

Only 40 per cent of the farmers use chemical fertilisers. The rest cannot afford it. They are by economic default reasoning organic farmers. The protocol for organic farming should be put to test and the farmers ordained for this kind of best practices agriculture.

With global warming coming in to play, it is necessary to understand that the lands have become thirstier. Thirsty they always were. Now they require more water just as in summer humans require more water to cool themselves off. Plants also require cooling off and do have evapo-transpiration to cater for. This means the original agronomic practices have to be modified. No scientist can tell you what the cold tolerance or heat tolerance of the plant is. They have just not worked on temperature tolerance. That requires a different kind of thinking and a different kind of approach in which the scientist gives way to probabilities and possibilities. Scientific certainty is not possible for there are a number of grey areas that have to be covered and we have no Einstein.

If the existing agronomic practices are not going to work, what are the changes that have to be brought in? There are options available. The government, just before the present change from military dictatorship to democratic process, signed away their crop maximisation programme to an NGO for Rs428 million.

Many in the past have done crop maximisation and they have always failed. They have this fetish about food security being possible by throwing money without understanding that the knowledge that is required is so vast and the goalposts so different that it is impossible for the NGO to deliver. The nature of agriculture is such that routine interventions are not likely to deliver, a point I made to the President in the initial stages of his presidency.

What is the way forward? It is to have a different kind of revolution. The green revolution has played out and India is suffering from the aftermath of the green revolution. The yield of wheat in Indian Punjab has dropped from 48 mds per acre to 28 mds per acre. The farmers are in turmoil with suicide rates going sky high. A total of 0.15 million suicides for an agricultural country are very substantial.

So the route to take is to reduce the cost of inputs. This is possible if one were to go for two kinds of interventions, one in the seed sector and the other in the soil sector. The two packages are important and go in tandem. The problem is with the decisions makers and the rich and powerful feudal lobby. The problems with the powerful is that they want to make it on the basis of existing knowledge and they want to ride rough shod on the aspirations of the poor.

Unless the policy and decision-makers realise that existing knowledge is obsolete, the matter will not go anywhere. So far as money throwing is concerned, that is not going to generate any productivity in growth.

Knowledge and competence is independent of loyalty and money resources. Bankers will never realise this. The era of bankers has to be done away with and then we will generate some new ideas, make mistakes and get up and do our bit.

The writer is a former federal secretary, food and agriculture.