Operation Flood; When we will be inundated?

https://www.facebook.com/notes/drjassar-aftab/operation-flood-when-we-will-be-inundated/985755254798140?pnref=lhc

“They are going to have an atomic bomb”, said Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan to Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. ZAB immediately arranged for him to meet Mr. Ayub Khan, the then President of Pakistan, who declined any offer by Munir. When Munir reported this to Bhutto he replied “Don’t worry, our turn will come”. However, after that incident, Pakistan ended up being sole nuclear power in Muslim world. Indians didn’t stop there, they ended up landing on Mars. But today unfortunately, there are no Munirs or ZABs alive to pursue that challenge.

Amidst all those miracles performed by our neighbors, one very remarkable achievement which is always neglected was in the livestock sector i.e their White Revolution. Within two decades, that revolution brought India at the top of all the milk producers in the whole world, making her self-sufficient and giving her a massive economic uplift. Project Amul of Verghese Kurien, idealized by Lal Bahadur Shastri, bore fruits of self-sufficiency in India regarding milk production.

The story actually started from H.M Dalaya inventing technique to obtain skim milk and condensed milk from buffalo milk instead of cow. Foreign qualified engineer, Verghese, seeing it as an opportunity based his own company “Amul” and thus making of co-operative societies of farmers in Gujarat, gave kick start to the revolution in India actually, naming it as “Project Anand”. Shastri on seeing this project successfully running and raising the living standard of local farming community, appointed the master mind “Milker man of India” as Chairman NDDP. Within 10-15 years when Iran was facing political revolution, India was going to hatch it’s agriculture based white revolution.

Pakistanis always remained in the illusion of “Looking towards West” policy and failed to comprehend that how her very own neighbor, utilizing all the national resources and foreign funding, has stepped far ahead to her in every field of life. The time we were busy to find the bases of every turmoil as some ‘Jewish Conspiracy’ every Indian farmer was busy in improving his lifestyle and preparing some more children to have more education. After 20 years of Operation flood in India, Pakistan too opened the eyes in the realm of practicality and pragmatism. Struggles were started to bring some same patterns of revolution in the country. PLDDB was established. They tried to assemble few “ideals” in the Pakistani environment but since its establishment, yet a lot of development is required in this regard. Of course, without due importance given by all the previous governments, it was impossible.

Meanwhile, big capitalists and corporate sector jumped into the race which was already won by them, blowing the economic status of poor farmer further. All the benefits got shifted in the favor of these big fishes of the market. The situation was idealized by the “intelligentsia” of the country considering it a big help of corporate sector in setting a precedent for the local farmers. Ironically, all that with pure exotic breeds (Bos taurus), where approximately 70  million of total dairy heads owned by poor local farmer actually comprises the Buffalo, indigenous cattle breeds (Bos indicus) and cross bred with maximum 50:50 genetic contribution. Exotic breeds require 10 percent more maintenance cost vis a vis indigenous cattle and have least adaptability and disease resistance to local environment and local pathogens, respectively. So, whole this process actually falsified any concept of white revolution in the country. It gone totally against what precedents were actually set by Indians. In the words of Verghese Kurien “the logic that dairy sector should be corporatized because farmers cannot handle it is the same kind of stupid logic given by Britishers 60 years ago that Indians cannot handle freedom, so we cannot give it to them.”

Father of white revolution in India (Vergehese Kuhen) holding an indigenous cow with halter and a rope.

Same logic is prevailing now among the dairy intelligentsia of the country, which is actually a farce. Pushing the things in favor of capitalists based economy, became our hobby since the era of British colonization.

Corporate dairy sector, no doubt, has its own beneficial vibe and status as a role model for other financially sound farmers, but considering it a model to poor local famer is really an injustice and tying it with the concept of revolution is some more injustice. This sector can play its role but up till now, very little development has been seen in positive terms.

A case study by Syed Hassan Raza et al. in 2009-10, suggested that adopting cooperative models, and on extrapolation of the results, average 25 percent more cost can be obtained, with uplift in milk quality and availability to consumers in return.

Some of the very vital steps taken in Operation flood of India were 1) Eliminating middle man 2) Developing local cooperatives of farmers 3) Uplift in health status with different projects especially that of FMD in the form of “Raksha” vaccine and vaccine for theleriosis 4) Teaching nutritional management to farmers and other techniques like urea molasses block 5) Improved breeding and husbandry practices 6) Fixing the costs of all the dairy related items like feed and products as well 7) Returns based on Profit-Loss to co-operatives and then it’s division among member farmers

It was as much simplistic as it seems. No rocket science was taught to farmers in this regard.

 What we have achieved

The curse of middle man still exists in Pakistan. No viable cooperatives have been developed which can have some trickle down effect to local farmers. Carpet vaccine started by L&DD department was a good way forward but the concept was anticipated too late when country faced million dollars of financial loss after last FMD outbreak. Still imported vaccines are considered reliable and are affordable only to rich farmers. Local research institutes have failed utterly in this regard up till now to have some viable solution devised. Farmers are still reluctant to adopt modern nutritional ways and this psychological warfare is not going good. Cost of both feed and milk are not fixed, which keep on creating an imbalance in fiscal status of the industry.

Government must adopt a holistic approach and in this process, can reliably follow Indian way of bringing change in the livestock sector of Pakistan. Aids  in this regard must be exploited in same way as it was done in the Phase 1 of Indian Operation. Only then there are chances that we will get inundated and irrigated in that flood, too.