Problems Faced by Rice Growing Farmers and Their Behavior to the Government Policies:; A Case from Pakistan

Abstract

Importance of rice in agricultural crops cannot be ignored as it is the staple food for more than fifty percent population of the world and a big source to cope with the food security issues of the world. Considering the importance of rice the year 2004 was declared as the international year of rice by FAO .Rice is cultivated over one hundred countries in the world. During 2011-2012, rice production in the world was 718.345 million tons and it was cultivated over an area of 163.463 million hectares.  In Pakistan, rice also enjoys a prominent status among cereal crops as in terms of area it is the third largest crop of Pakistan. In 2011-2012 rice was cultivated on 2.571 million hectares with production of 6.16 million tones and the average yield remained 2396 kg/ha. In the year 2012-2013, Per capita rice consumption in Pakistan is 15.30 kg/year. Since rice is not a staple food in Pakistan so every year a considerable quantity of rice produce is exported to earn foreign exchange. This present study was conducted in 2013 in two tehsils; namely Daska and Pasroor of Sialkot district of Punjab province of Pakistan. The main purpose of the study was to inquire the problems faced by rice farmers at different stages of rice cultivation i.e. rice production, rice crop protection and rice marketing stages. Out of the four tehsils of districts Sialkot, two tehsils were purposely selected due to the excessive cultivation of rice in these areas. Out of each tehsil, ten villages were randomly selected and out of each village, six farmers were randomly selected. Hence a sample of 120 farmers was selected. The selected farmers were interviewed and data were collected and analyzed. In terms of production related problems the findings showed that farmers perceived high price of fertilizer, shortage of canal water, high price of agricultural input, high rent charges of agricultural machinery, lack of consultancy facilities and lack of credit/finance as the major problems during the rice crop production stage. In terms of rice crop protection related problems, costly pesticides/weedicide and ineffective fungicide were identified by the farmers and in terms of marketing related problems of rice crop, unsatisfactory price offered of the produce, poor transportation, storage issues and lack of knowledge about market prices were identified by the farmers. The farmers also showed great dissatisfaction over the initiatives taken by government authorities to resolve the problems faced by them

Keywords: Rice farmer’s problems; production related issues; crop protection related issues; marketing related issues; dissatisfaction level on government policies.