Wheat seeds shortage feared in KPK

Wheat seeds shortage in KPK

By Tahir Ali
(DAWN Monday, 20 Sep, 2010)

WITH the wheat sowing season to commence next month, farmers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa anticipate an acute shortage of seeds. They fear that if the issue is not tackled soon, it will severely damage the crop prospects.

They want the federal and provincial governments and the international community to come to the rescue of the badly hit growers for whom the coming Rabi crop constitutes a first step towards their ultimate rehabilitation.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has also warned that farmers in KP may not be able to plant wheat because of non-availability of quality seed and other needed inputs. Failure to provide time-critical inputs could reduce wheat yields, it fears.

Realising the potential seed shortage, the government has asked district agriculture officials to buy even the wheat meant for food.

“Normally wheat food grain is not utilised for sowing. But as seed shortage is feared, the director-general agricultural extension, KP, has asked all districts to buy as much of the commodity as possible,” says an official.

Though officials are confident there would be no shortage of seed, farmers fear its scarcity in coming weeks.

“Enough quantity and a robust system of distribution must be arranged in emergency,” said Niamat Shah Sawal Dher, general secretary of the Anjuman-e-Kashtkaran of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Shah feared that millions of acres of irrigated land may be left barren if seed was not arranged in time. “With the Pirsabaq’s seeds research farm, public seeds industry and private seed stocks having been mostly destroyed by floods, KP is almost certain to face wheat seed shortage. The government should quickly import standard certified seeds to fill the gap,” he said.

“There are also reports that the government wants to utilise food standard wheat as seeds in wake of shortage. This is not a right choice,” Shah added.

Murad Ali Khan, the president of the Kissan Board Pakistan, said “We will like the government to provide seed free of cost to flood-hit farmers.”

Muhammad Zahir Khan, a farmers’ leader, said Charsadda farmers have lost wheat seed stored in their homes. “The government and farmers organisations should sit together to chalk out a strategy as to what should be done to ensure a bumper wheat crop. Wheat sowing is at hand, but there is neither any compensation nor free seed or other inputs for the growers despite promises. I am worried how will farmers pay their agricultural debts, buy inputs and feed their families when they won’t be able to sow wheat,” she said.

Bakht Biland Khan, general secretary of Kissan Board, Swat, also asked for relief . “While we know Swat is not the only place to have been hit by flood but we do deserve more attention as we have been devastated first by militancy and then by floods. Swat farmers are mostly poor who own an acre of land and have no money to buy inputs. We deserve to be compensated for our losses and must be given free seed and money to buy farm inputs and reclaim our fields,” he said.

A senior official said: “We will shortly take up the issue with the federal government. The provincial food department has also enough wheat stock that can be used as seed. Private seed companies will also be procuring the commodity. We also intend to buy seed from Punjab and have already bought 2,000 tons of it. Though at present we have only a small quantity of the required seed, it is hoped that by the start of the wheat sowing season, the problem will be solved,” he added. But this, others fear, may not be the case.

The KP uses about 1.9 million acres for wheat cultivation. The provincial seeds industry provides 10 per cent of the total wheat seeds requirement of 80,000 metric tons to farmers.

This year the demand for wheat seed has increased. In the past, 70 per cent of the KP farmers used their own stock while the rest bought seeds. Now as floods have destroyed wheat stocks in Charasadda, Nowshera and the DIK and Lakki Marwat, the government will have to provide seeds to more farmers.

Recent flash floods have dealt severe blows to agriculture in Peshawar valley, Malakand division and southern parts of the province.

The FAO, provincial Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Settlement Authority and some local and international non-governmental organisations are planning to provide farm inputs to farmers on a limited scale. It means a large number of affected farmers will not benefit from the plan and will be left out.

Liberalism of the chattering classes

This class wants democracy. Who doesn't? But do these sophists understand how democracy functions. Not really. They are wealthy, sophisticated, educated and call themselves the intelligentsia. They live in an air-controlled environment and party at will, partaking of the good things of life, some forbidden, but readily available if you pay the cash. Where is this claque of democracy lovers now when the great deluge has drowned the life of the poor? Has any fat cat gone hungry; thirsty; homeless? Or lost his/her designer wardrobe to the Great Flood? Or fallen victim to diarrhoea, nausea, malnutrition, dehydration, cholera, even death?
Has this cavalier class created some kind of collective synergy, a formula to face the aftermath? To organise cadres of volunteers overseeing the relief? To question who is the national bursar? Imran Khan and a few others are exemplars. They have produced concrete results.
The word 'democracy' is a shrill cliché in our part of the world. Ruling politicians swear they want to save democracy (from whom?). High-powered journalists bandy the word. Members of civil society especially those running foreign-funded non-governmental organisations lecture us on its worth. Instead of homilies, where can one find a sober voice of reason/ analyst/ expert who can guide the way to a workable democracy, not the one where corruption by the rulers is condoned and criminal neglect by the decision-makers ignored. Has any scofflaw, the politician who let their people drown to save their lands during the flood been hauled up?
Is Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry now holding the additional portfolio of commander-in-chief of accountability?
Nobody wants the generals/brigadiers/ colonels/majors and captains taking charge of governance. They are not fit to rule. They are fit to fight. "Enroll your son in the fauj if his grades don't make the mark or colleges reject them," was the mantra in Pakistani households not long ago. But that's not to say that every duffer or a loser was marched off to the barracks. Not at all. Some brilliant brains and brave hearts defending our borders have won the highest awards in chivalry and art of war. They are our pride.
But martial law? No thanks. It's been a colossal failure whenever imposed. Imagine having an army captain turn up at your office in his jeep with his dunda tucked under his arm, wanting to take over your space because he's now your boss. I've seen it happen during the 1965 and 1971 wars and during Yahya's 1969; Zia's 1977 and Musharraf's 1999. Memories of the first martial law in Punjab in the 50s when squabbling politicians failed to control the public riots (déjà vu today) are etched in my mind (kids have a great retention power). The GOC of Lahore General Azam Khan was given orders by the Defence Secretary Gen Iskander Mirza to go sort everyone out. Sure he did! Instead of targeting the politicians responsible for the mess (and I can give you the inside story), the chief secretary and commissioner Lahore got jerked around. Like a hurricane, the little general in his uniform would show up at the door, unannounced, and begin barking orders throwing the whole household into a tizzy.
Fast forward to another martial law.
My chapter opens on a cold spring day when the blossoms in New York were just opening up and the sun felt good. We wound our way to the Pakistan mission located on a side-road of the swank Fifth Avenue, the home of Manhattan's millionaires. Fluttering in the mild breeze was a giant Pakistani flag on a slanted pole. It was making a statement. Pride and hope rushed to the brain as we climbed a majestic staircase, the kind you see in old mansions, to step into a crystal chandeliered room. The voting had begun. Did we want the general to stay in office for three years to clean up the mess after Nawaz Sharif? Of course yes!
Soon after Musharraf became the president, he went to China to talk shop. According to someone very close to him, the couple didn't have extra dollars to buy themselves thermal vests. They shivered until someone in the entourage lent them $300 to go get themselves woolies. That was the winter of 1999. "The suits he wore during the trip were atrocious, cheap material and badly stitched." Very soon Mr & Mrs Musharraf's wardrobes underwent a sea-change. Donning Armani suits and matching ties with imported leather shoes became the dictator's hallmark. When the Iraqi President Saddam Hussain offered oil to Pakistan at throwaway prices, Musharraf declined. Why? The Americans had gotten wind of it waving green backs at him that proved too tempting to resist. Some went into the Pakistani treasury; some allegedly into his bank account abroad.
The public may never find out how their president betrayed them and sold their national interest for a few pieces of silver. Of course we had a parliament in place; of course we had a prime minister with his troupe of ministers; of course we had an opposition - All the ingredients that make for a democracy. George W Bush patted Musharraf for introducing democracy; he invited him to his farm in Texas. He gave $ 10 billion to him to keep the 'war on terror' from reaching the American mainland. The brass back home cranked up its outdated hardware giving India the jitters. Visits to and fro from the US by our men in uniform became commonplace.
While Musharraf kept his generals happy with enough dough coming from the US, Shaukat Aziz and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain were left to deal with democracy. They made a hash of the civilian set up; they demolished established institutions; they laid to waste all the progress achieved in the area of education, science and higher learning. Load-shedding entered our lives one fine morning. The chief justice and his judges were made non-functional.
Yeah, that was democracy!
Altaf Hussain has had enough of democracy. Cut in the style of a pseudo Alexander; Caesar; Genghis Khan, he rules over the hearts and minds of his burgeoning army listening in pin-drop silence to his histrionic declamation delivered on phone from London regularly at a raily (as in rally). This makes sure the rest of Pakistan (GHQ, Presidency and the PM House) hear him. Naught for nothing has the MQM always been a coalition partner with dictators and democrats alike over decades.
But Hussain's latest jingoism about empowering generals and pinning politicians to the guillotine has left tongues swaggering. The only positive outcome of this shemozzle is that the media and the intelligentsia have finally replaced their kid gloves with knuckledusters. But, instead of going to war with Hussain inviting martial law, we should try separating the chaff from the grain that he scatters so freely. There is sense in what he says. We need to engage him further; ask his action plan; how he intendeds executing it. He must have some plan. Can he leave his staple flowery script accompanied by a marsia style of lamentation, for once?
In the weeks to follow, I'd like to share my notes on democracy when it first became a fad way back in the 50s. The long journey may elicit some answers. And answers we must have. Because what we have today is not what we want.

Email: anjumniaz@rocketmail.com

Hekmatyar terms peace talks a drama

 PESHAWAR: Terming the peace talks a drama to deceive the people of Afghanistan, Hezb-e-Islami Chief Gulbadin Hekmatyar on Tuesday said that continuation of jihad was only way to resolve the prevailing problems in Afghanistan.
“We must be aware that Moscow, Washington and our jealous neighbours may impose the same situation on our nation that they imposed after the withdrawal of Russian forces from Afghanistan,” the fugitive Afghan leader said in a message sent to the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) ahead of Eidul Fitr.
He said the Americans wanted to hand over the incomplete command of war in Afghanistan to Iran and Russia. “For this purpose they have strengthened pro-Moscow and Iran groups in Afghan army, police and intelligence department,” he said, and urged all the Muslims and mujahideen to join hands to foil the conspiracy.
He said talk about reconciliation was a drama to deceiving people. “Don’t see it the only way out of the Afghan issue and continue the jihad oust all the foreign troops from Afghanistan,” the HI chief said.
Hekmatyar alleged that explosions and rockets attacks on houses, villages, wedding celebrations and schools were carried out by the ‘enemy’.
Hekmatyar warned Pakistani and Iranian officials against supporting the United States and Afghan government. “We advise Pakistani and Iranian officials to shun support to Americans and not compromise on bloodbath of innocent Afghans and destroying their homeland in exchange for US perks and privileges,” he added.
The former premier also urged the Afghans to take active part in jihad and support mujahideen in their struggle against the foreign forces.