Pakistan Economy

The Green Revolution

Pakistan mainly focused on its industrial sector after its inception, but
soon it was realized that it wasn’t possible unless the agricultural sector
was worked on as well. The focus remained on industrial sector from
inception till 1958.
The Green Revolution began in 1958. Its initial stages from 1959-1964
there was an increase in agriculture of about 3.7% and this increased to
6.3% form 1965-1970. In the peak time of this period, from 1966-68 this
rate increased to 11.3% and a rate of 9.6% was maintained through
1968-70. Changes were introduced in the agriculture sector in several
phases, they were:
Phase 1: The first phase was concerned with implementation of tube
wells. There were 25000 tube wells installed. The area irrigated by tube
wells increased six times from 1959 over the next ten years and from
1964-70 the number of tube wells in the country increased from 34000
to 79000. Subsidies were given on fuel, installation and maintenance.
Phase 2: The second phase consisted of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides.
For this purpose, Maxi-Pak wheat seed from Mexico and IRRI rice seed
from Philippines was imported which increased the productivity of
wheat and rice by 91 and 141 percent respectively.
Phase 3: The last phase consisted of tractorizing. The government
provided farmers with tractors which resulted in the increase of tractors
to 18,909 in 1968.

Issues
Tube wells were given to farmers owning land greater than 25 acres.
Tractors were also mostly provided to these farmers ignoring the
small farmers. In addition to this, due to greater initial costs these
wells were not installed in the mountainous regions of
Baluchistan, KPK and Sindh. Instead they were planted in just
three regions of Punjab that were Faisalabad, Sahiwal and Multan.
This created regional and income disparities between these
regions and the rest of the country.
Land Reforms
Since most of the land was unequally distributed, Muslim League
decided to make some amendments. But a problem arose, 80% and
90% of the parliament members in Punjab and Sindh respectively were
the same land owners, hence no reform could be made which would
actually reduce their control and power in order to strengthen the small
farmers

1959 Land Reforms

These reforms were introduced by General Ayyub Khan.
Ceilings were set on land holdings on cultivable and fallow lands of 500
and 1000 acres respectively. The value of land was measured according
to a unit known as PIU which was set at a maximum limit of 36000.
Land owners were compensated for their resumed land at Rs. 1-5 per
PIU payable in 25 years biannual payments and jagir system was
terminated. In addition to that rent was changed to currency instead of
kind.

1972 Land Reforms

The short comings of the 1959 reforms were quite clear and how most
of the famers and the lower class didn’t benefit from them. Incumbent
government with their main plan of uplifting the small farmers and the
lower class earned them majority of support and hence they came into
power. They were determined to reevaluate the reforms to decrease
the concentrated land division into a more equitable division that would
benefit the small farmers. The main highlights of these reforms are
outlined as following:
1. These reforms were brought by the democratic rule under
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
2. The land holding limit was decreased to 150 and 300 acres for
cultivable and uncultivable land respectively
3. The PIU limit measurement was same however under the new
boundaries this limit was decreased to 12000+ 2000 for tube
wells and tractors
4. No compensation was offered to land owners whose land was
resumed
5. This land was not sold to small farmers as done previously but
distributed freely
6. Tenants were to be removed/evicted in case of non-payment of
rent or inability to cultivate land

Analysis

Like communism, this idea of reforming the land looked good in theory
but once it was implemented the results showed otherwise. There was
a huge political factor involved that made this whole reform ineffective
due to biasness involved. Huge chunks of lands were gifted, as well as
many people tricked the whole ceiling thing through transference of
land to their kin and relatives. The most primitive action that would
have been taken obviously was to remain unbiased throughout the
implementation of these reforms. Instead of limiting land ownership to
an individual it should have been applied on the whole family so that
people would not have retained the extra land holdings by transferring
them to their family members.
The PIU calculations were to a great extent flawed and should’ve been
discarded once it was clear that it’s not an effective way.
In short, the green revolution was good for some and bad for others.
The consequences of that whole era were not certainly most desirable
as it did boost the agricultural and economic growth at the expense of
creating regional and income disparities in the country.