THE federal budget did touch some key areas of the agriculture sector but left their details untouched. Forinstance, it says that taxes would be rationalised. What does that mean for the sector? Taxes are now a matter of existential importance. They can be rationalised in two ways: reduction or increase. Which way would they go? We have clues but no answers. Similarly, climate change, which again is a matter of prime importance for agriculture, is present, and again, an authority has been set up. What it will do and how much agriculture will benefit from its working is still a guessing matter.

The only direct allocation for the sector is Rs5bn for `farm mechanisation and risk sharing.` It also leaves farmers wondering what this vague head would include or exclude. Whether crop insurance would also be put under this head? All these questions are left unanswered. Farmers are a confused lot. The biggest issue that agriculture faced last year was cost of production. As the world absorbed the impact of Covid-19 and then the Ukrainian War both pushed world commodity prices up and prices were sliding back to pre-problem levels, cost of production kept rising.

This is the cycle Pakistani farming is going through right now. This issue needed a response, but the finance bill is silent. Instead, the response is spread among different institutions, authorities, and ministries, with key questions hanging in the air. This is called shirking of duty, not ruling the country. •