English - IFAD

112
Rural Poverty Report 2011
Shazia Bibi, in her mid-thirties and a mother
of three, lives in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
(formerly the North West Frontier Province),
Pakistan. She and her husband grow
vegetables, garlic, taro, maize and wheat,
and market part of their crop. But the small,
unpredictable profits generated are scarcely
enough to pay for the children’s education
and the long-term medical treatment Shazia
needs for a heart condition.
and take it to the market in Abbottabad.”
If they predict selling at a loss they store the
harvest at home, a time-consuming process
as the crops must be cleaned and shifted
from room to room every 15 days to avoid
termite infestation.
Taking the example of garlic, Shazia explains
how the market system works – or doesn’t
work – for them: “Sometimes one makes a
profit and sometimes the loss is doubled…
[that is] we do not get as much money as we
have spent. When other garlic from China or
India arrives our garlic loses all its value…
We hold on to our garlic in our houses, for
the reason that maybe our condition
improves and it sells at a good price…”
According to Shazia, not only does imported
garlic drive down the price of local garlic, it
also cannot be conserved in the way that
local garlic can. “Ours is small and longlasting,”
she says. “If we store it for one and
half years it remains fresh.”
Once the crops are ready to harvest, they
check market prices and calculate whether
their costs – including land rental, seeds,
fertilizer, pesticides and some hired labour –
will be covered if they sell straightaway. “If all
our costs are covered,” Shazia says, “we
immediately take [the crop] out of the land
They also keep a buffalo, some goats and a
hen, mostly using their products themselves,
but also selling the buffalo milk: “With this
we try to improve our condition to some
extent.” Using the buffalo manure also
saves them from having to purchase so
much fertilizer.