MYTH 1: AGRICULTURE PLAYS A MINOR ROLE IN PAKISTAN’S ECONOMYYear after year, more than 75 percent of Pakistan’s exports are found to be based on agriculture. Pakistan’s export mix has lamentably remained the same for more than a couple of decades. Textiles have dominated, followed by rice, fruits, leather goods, etc. For every extra dollar of cotton produced at the farm gate, there is at least three dollars and fifty cents of textile products exported by Pakistan. This multiplier is even higher for shirts, t-shirts, socks, etc., compared to bed linen and towels.For a sector that typically accounts for 20 to 25 percent of Pakistan’s GDP, agriculture packs a lot more economic punch than Pakistan’s policymakers give it credit for. Agriculture is also widely linked to other sectors of the Pakistani economy.When agriculture moves, transport moves, milling moves, packaging moves, motorcycle sales move, etc. The direct and indirect contribution of agriculture within the domestic economy was, in fact, estimated at 45 percent by a Bank of Punjab study.But the more important question today is: which sector can get Pakistan out of its current economic troubles quickly?Pakistan needs a massive increase in exports, but without a corresponding increase in imports. So, the government has largely been correct in its identification of mining, information technology (IT), and agriculture as priority sectors for economic growth. Among these, agriculture is the sector that can give Pakistan quicker growth, at a much lower cost, and with a much greater impact on poverty.But the neglect of agriculture has meant that growth in agriculture has hovered at a little over two percent per annum over the past couple of decades. For every dollar of wheat produced in Pakistan, the value of wheat flour (atta) we make barely reaches a dollar and fifty cents. But that dollar of wheat can produce six dollars’ worth of cookies.Meanwhile, the neglect of agriculture has turned us into an importer of wheat, cotton and many other crops that have been grown in our geographical region for thousands of years! The fact is, agriculture does not play a minor role in Pakistan’s economy and it can play a critical part in Pakistan’s economic turnaround.MYTH 2: THE WORLD IS TRYING TO KILL US THROUGH ‘TERMINATOR SEEDS’Better seeds are perhaps the most powerful driver of an improvement in agriculture. But, paranoia is our national pastime, and paranoia turns into terror in the Pakistani public’s mind when it comes to seeds. The most frequently asked question about seeds is: are the world’s ‘evil powers’ trying to sell us ‘terminator seeds’ that will render our soils unproductive?And this terror even impacts policymaking! There is a story told in agriculture policy circles about how a major reform of the seed sector was finally scuttled by officials from our agencies on account of national security. As Mark Twain said, when you’re a hammer, pretty soon everything begins to look like a nail.The neglect of agriculture has turned us into an importer of wheat, cotton and many other crops that have been grown in our geographical region for thousands of years! The fact is, agriculture does not play a minor role in Pakistan’s economy and it can play a critical part in Pakistan’s economic turnaround.Paranoia does not require rationality. Somehow, in the last quarter century, we have imported tens of millions of mobile phones and hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of oil, but the world’s ‘evil powers’ have not elected to puncture our communications systems or jam up our car engines. Meanwhile, seeds have remained heavily regulated particularly for major crops such as wheat, cotton and Basmati rice.The real question is: what have we achieved by being so well protected in our regulatory bunker? Well, hardly any nationally significant seed variety has been introduced that dramatically increased yields for our major crops. With our multi-billion-dollar rice exports, Super Basmati is the locally developed variety that still dominates the rice landscape. It was released by a public sector seed research outfit a quarter of a century ago.As always, there is an exception to all our rules: the incredible success of the imported hybrid seed. The government introduced a framework for hybrid seeds in 2001 that led to the import of hybrid maize, rice and vegetable seeds. Maize yields have tripled since then, as farmers have adopted hybrid maize seeds, and maize output has risen six-fold! And, there have been no signs of any ‘terminators’.The reality is that seed development in the country requires a modern seed industry right here in Pakistan. Seed is typically a local business in which international firms can bring expertise and capital, but the development has to be done indigenously.Here, the government’s command-and-control approach to seed development by the private sector has to shift to an enabling approach. Private seed companies are always shy to submit their best seed to the government’s byzantine seed certification process. They know the seed will be sold under the table during this process and all their investment in research will be lost. This mistrust must be eliminated. Often, the most potent voices against such a move are the country’s large farmers, who benefit from selling leftover seed from the previous season to other farmers with minimal quality checks.