Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Recollections and remembrances

Cotton 2,765 2,890 4.49%(Thousand bales) (Thousand bales)The increase in the last column by any standards phenomenal, except in the caseof cotton in which excessive rains and floods destroyed the crop not once buttwice both at the crucial stages of sowing and flowering. The ruination of the cropwhich these calamities brought was beyond human control.I would also like to give here a brief comparison for the same five commodities inthe production for 1974-75 and 1975-76. The brief sums will bring out clearly thatpatient and persistent efforts in only one year, if made earnestly on the right lines,can work wonders. What I am alluding to is the act that after the blueprintevolved by the Agricultural Inquiry Committee was approved in the second halfof June. 1975, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture mobilized every ounce of itsown capability and energy and of all Provinces in close cooperation with themand was able to achieve the following results:Table IICrop. Production Production1974-75 1975-76(In million tons)Wheat . 7.4 8.5Rice 2.277 2.576Maize 0.735 790Sugarcane 20.9 25.163Cotton 3.567 2.890(million bales) (million bales)As the last column shows, in wheat, we reached the self-sufficiency mark. Theonly crop in which decline took place was cotton for reasons already mentionedin the foregoing para. Nowhere in the developing world had one year shown somuch progress in agriculture. It must also be added that due to an unfortunatemishap water from the giant Tarbela Dam could not commence flow during theyear. Otherwise, the production in these crops would have shown a higher reason.According to the reports received from the provinces in 1976-77 the production ofwheat touched the sufficiency mark of one hundred million tons butunfortunately the imposition of Martial Law hindered tabulating its figures in thecentre.TILLER OF THE SOILIt would be unfair not to mention in this connection, the participation and hardwork put in by cultivators inspired by the land reforms and fired by the zealgenerated by numerous progressive measures for the welfare of the rural masses,Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Recollections and Remembrances; Copyright © www.bhutto.org 121