SINDH lacks effective and quality agriculture extension services because the work of its related department is often described as either below par or non-existent. Outreach to farmers is handicapped by its unwilling workers coupled with a understaffed outfit also lacking required expertise and skills.

For many progressive farmers, the department has ceased to exist for all practical purposes despite the claim that it provides the best possible services to them. Background discussions with officers of the agriculture department reveal that not only extension but its research and engineering wings, too, work in isolation and without coordination for information and expertise sharing.

The extension department’s anchor persons are agriculture officers (AOs) who are to be appointed through competitive exams by the provincial government. After 1998, no such examination is said to have been held. The Sindh Agriculture University (SAU) graduates turn to private sector or even opt for the post of lower scale like field assistants (FAs) and work under the few AOs in the payrolls.

Important posts like those of directors plant protection, coordination, crop reporting etc are lying vacant in the agriculture department. Same is the case with regional directors. Against five, one or two are working on an ad hoc basis.

Departmental promotion committees have not finalised cases of many BS-17 officers who are serving in the same scale for a long time. Some of the agricultural graduates are on the verge of retirement. But story doesn’t end here. This has resulted in financial malpractices.

Important posts like those of directors plant protection, coordination, crop reporting etc are lying vacant in the agriculture department

“Around 200 posts of AOs are lying vacant. For instance: I will mention only one district where four AOs are working against the 27 posts. This is how the extension department is making its presence felt,” says an officer.

It is AOs who coordinate with farmers and share expertise or innovations that are introduced by the research and engineering departments. They also assist growers in sowing to harvesting of any crop wherever needed.

But they don’t have vehicles to cover long distances. They are supposed to have a check on adulterated fertilisers and pesticides — the two crucial ingredients that play an important role in crop productivity.

The fresh SAU graduates are offered posts of FAs. Only those join the department who prefer government jobs. They eventually get promotion to become AOs.

Recently Director General Agriculture Extension Hidayatullah Chhajro informed a meeting of growers that the department was facing staff shortage and logistics limitations. Still, he says, Sindh’s major crops’ yield is the highest among all the provinces.

“How can we believe those unreliable statistics when we personally know that the [agriculture] extension department is practically non-existent,” remarks Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) Vice-President Mahmood Nawaz Shah. Despite lapse of five years, the Sindh government has not been able to come up with an agriculture policy after devolution of the ministry under the 18th amendment in 2010. “Can extension department tell us the Sindh’s share in GDP with its own facts and figures?” he asks.

For the last few years the department has not been getting funds for holding exhibitions to demonstrate different crops to farmers. AOs and FAs are always reluctant to visit farms or market place for non-availability of vehicles. This hampers collection of samples of adulterated fertiliser/pesticides. “If anyone dares figure it out or lay hands on some storekeeper for selling substandard pesticides, he faces the music thanks to weak departmental writ,” the SAB official laments.

“Farmers face issues of soil degradation, fast de-generating crop varieties or multiplication of quality variety itself, but we find agriculture extension nowhere. We strongly advise that this department should be closed down or at least present lot of officers should be replaced with qualified staff through merit-based hiring process as soon as possible,” contends Nabi Bux Sathio, General Secretary Sindh Chamber of Agriculture.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, April 18th, 2016