Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig
The mountainous regions of KP get small amount of yield due to weather conditions as well as very bad road system. Since the roads are narrow and highly dangerous, only 4×4 vehicles can reach higher parts of the valleys and, therefore, charge double the normal rate of transportation and this reduces the income to the cultivator.
For example, potato has to be carried to markets hundreds of kilometers and the charges exceed the price at the market. The cereals and annual product is always poor due to high prices of fertilizers and the investment is much higher than the income so the farmer is always at loss.
The agriculture department is working on the same level as it did 40 years ago whereas the population has doubled in the meantime. The allocation of funds to extension is negligible and the number of staff and training of staff is also not commensurate with the rise in the market as well as demographic rise. The owners of the small plots have not seen a trained staff of agriculture department in years and no such activity has been seen in the villages.
The fruits go waste and value added products are not known. Apples from the distant valleys cannot reach the markets due to poor road system so a good amount of Horticultural product goes to waste. There is a high need to introduce small scale machines in villages to train men and women to make jams and other products from their fruit stock. This has to be given on priority basis and trained staff has to be sent to all valleys to create awareness about this side of preservation of land produce. Agriculture is the backbone of our society and mountain regions have to be given a different status and priority to save their products and make it lucrative instead of throwing it into the rivers because there is no conservation facility neither by the department concerned nor by the NGOs working in the mountain region of the country.
The federal and provincial governments should get loans for developing agricultural products instead of building stadiums, housing schemes, substandard protection walls like the one at Reshun, Upper Chitral and tournament sites at high altitude regions which creates dust pollution to accelerate thawing of glaciers to trigger GLOFs and river erosions and make further headache for the communities already suffering from poor resources, diseases, lack of healthcare centres, drug addiction and high cost of living. High priority has to be given to agriculture to engage unemployment.