THE announcement of sector-wise growth numbers provides confirmation of some of the problems facing agriculture in Pakistan. A negative growth rate of 0.19pc, on the back of a 28pc drop in cotton production, is worrying not just because it chops off nearly 0.4pc from overall GDP growth, but because nearly 40pc of the labour force is associated with the farm economy.

Crisis in Pakistan’s agriculture sector is not a new development. In the last 15 years, the sector has grown at an average of 2.2pc per annum. A slump in global food prices since 2008 along with weak demand of agricultural exports shoulders some of the blame for the stagnation. In the same time period, production of cotton, the country’s most important crop, has fluctuated rapidly.

Part of this is because it faced exogenous challenges in the shape of pest attacks and bad seed quality, but partly because of an incentive problem — led by sugar mills — that pushes farmers to switch cotton producing acreage to sugarcane.

In rural Punjab, mid-sized landowners play an important role as political intermediaries.

This persistent, decade-long slump in the farming sector has invoked several reactions. The PPP, during its time in government, responded by consistently raising support prices for wheat and sugar. This had the impact of shifting the urban-rural terms of trade in favour of the latter, thus increasing cash flows towards producers (while making commodities expensive for non-land-owning households).

The PML-N, in the face of protests by organisations representing medium and big farmers, such as the Abadkar Board and the Kissan Ittehad, first announced a farmer package, and has now announced a bundle of pro-farmer measures in Friday’s budget. This includes input subsidies, a reduction in the electricity tariff for tube-well use, removal of sales tax on pesticides, and removal of duties on imported feed.

It is not difficult to understand why the PML-N, otherwise a party led by urban industrialists and businessmen, jumped into action with this budget. Last year’s local government election results in Punjab highlighted the importance of independent candidates and their electoral panels, who ended up winning nearly 45pc of all rural seats. Most, if not all, of these candidates belong to the market-oriented landed class, and hold diversified interests in cash crop farming and agro-processing.

In rural Punjab, mid-sized landowners play an important role as political intermediaries. They are responsible for organising vote blocs, known as dharras, and negotiate with parties and candidates for specific goods and services. While they are mostly self-serving in their demands, they cannot ignore the interests of fellow farmers while making political decisions. In a similar vein, large landowners, who may have political ambitions as candidates themselves, cannot ignore the interests of these intermediaries if they intend on doing well come election time.

In a scenario where the agricultural commodity crisis continues, it is completely plausible that rising disaffection with the incumbent government’s inaction pushes many political landowners — who’ve just joined the PML-N — to try their luck with other parties.

While traditionally, the PPP has represented rural interests in the province, the PTI currently acts as the more attractive option for the politically aspirational. This is because of two reasons. Firstly, in its new role as the predominant opposition party, it is in a better position to capture anti-incumbent votes. There is countrywide recognition of the PTI as a staunchly anti-PML-N option. Secondly, a segment of their leadership has strong roots in rural areas, with leaders such as Shah Mehmood Qureshi being former office-bearers of several farmer associations.

With general elections just two years away, and a number of other image-damaging problems currently afflicting the government, PML-N cannot afford to alienate the rural elite and middle class. What this likely means is that support to agriculture will go up, and in the next year or so the government will pour in money into constituency-based development schemes to keep its candidates, brokers, and integral supporters on board.

More broadly, the government providing subsidies and exemptions to farmers further confirms the importance accorded to the elite and the middle class in political calculations. To put this into some perspective, it is worth looking at a much bigger rural crisis plaguing the country for the past many years: During the last four decades, an inter-generational reduction in farm sizes at the bottom of the land pyramid has pushed many small cultivators, tenant farmers and share-croppers into rural wage work.

Nearly 85pc of all farms are now smaller than 10 acres, and approximately 80pc of the rural population is now landless. As a result, rural poverty — which is highly correlated with asset ownership — remains above the 50pc mark, according to the new headcount methodology.

The long-standing condition of crippling rural poverty has not received even half as much attention as the recent slump in farm prices. Apart from some social protection measures, such as the BISP, there is little that this or any previous government has done to help out landless workers in rural areas. In fact, there has been no concerted agenda to document and ameliorate the conditions faced by an overwhelming majority of rural dwellers, which are disorganised and unable to voice their concerns effectively.

If farmer packages and the sort of measures introduced in the budget are successful, the main advantages will be accrued by large- and medium-sized landowners who produce for the market. In the process, maybe some benefit will pass down to the perpetually ignored landless artisans and rural wage workers.

From a social justice perspective, however, this is an inadequate strategy. If the government is serious about resolving the agricultural crisis, it needs to move beyond a narrow political calculus and broaden its attention to include the rural poor. Otherwise, the structural condition of rural poverty will continue to persist as it has for the last so many years.

The writer is a freelance columnist.

umairjaved@lumsalumni.pk

Twitter: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2016