The economy in Merged Areas (MA) is largely driven by the agriculture sector. However, the agricultural productivity is not as strong as the potential of success in the sector. Interventions focused on resolving the issues faced by farmers on grassroots level are the need of the hour. 

Some of these interventions were discussed in the policy webinar called “Use of Evidence in Agricultural Programmes” organized by Merged Areas Governance Project (MAGP) of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The webinar is part of an on-going policy seminar series centered around behavioral interventions and field experiments in the agricultural sector of developing countries. 

Government officials, researchers and development practitioners debated the steps of a comprehensive roadmap of behavioral interventions and field experiments. In his opening remarks, KP Agriculture, Livestock Fisheries & Cooperatives Department Secretary Muhammad Israr reiterated government’s commitment to revolutionizing the agriculture sector via effective, result-oriented schemes and use of technology.

“An integrated approach was adopted to improve the livelihood opportunities, designing area-specific projects based on the local resource base”, he said.

“One way in which this was achieved was through providing improved seeds of maize, wheat, potato and vegetables along-with tool kits and pesticides and weedicides to farmers,” he added, sharing that the department plans to take on innovative interventions to amend the behavior of farmers to undertake novel technologies in near future. 

Commending the government on its efforts, UNDP Agriculture Specialist Shad Muhammad shed light on the challenges in the MAs including various behavioral biases, risk and ambiguity perceived by farmers, their limited knowledge and skills, and severe credit constraints faced by agricultural producers. He said the sector is evolving slowly and the limited use of new technologies is gravely affecting growth, adding that the solution lies encouraging farmers to inform them of the various government initiatives and increase the use of technology in the horticulture sector.

“Human behaviour universally is to resist change. For most people, seeing is believing, and that is one of the major reasons why the farmers in Merged Areas are struggling. They need information and transparency to be able to trust the innovations and incorporate them into their conventional farming techniques,” Shad said.

While answering a question on the increase of brain drain and the youth leaving the country for employment opportunities, Shad added one way the youth could be encouraged to stay back and engage in farming is to shift from low-yielding traditional crops to high-value crops to generate a higher income and boosting the agricultural economy in the region.

Sharing his insights, UNDP Agriculture & Horticulture Specialist Dr Tigran Melkonyan who was also the keynote speaker in the panel, presented the main components of designing effective interventions. This includes identifying and collecting data on agricultural practices and potential outcomes, and establishing a scientific basis for the intervention, formulating a hypothesis, and testing statistical procedures to estimate the efficacy of the intervention. Building on those results, Melkonyan said an actionable plan of the intervention and procedures can be created to effectively monitor implementation. 

He also shared examples of countries such as Kenya programmes such as a randomized controlled trial to increase fertilizer use proved successful as 45% of farmers reported using fertilizer compared to only 34% in the control group, something which the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is also testing in the MAs. 

Concluding the session, KP Agriculture, Livestock Fisheries & Cooperatives Minister Muhib Ullah Khan praised MAGP for organizing informative webinars targeting specific problems in the various sectors in the local context of the MAs.

“Carrying out interventions in the agricultural sector has its challenges especially in the Merged Areas, but it was useful to see a roadmap of how it might be possible to do so”, the agriculture minister said.

One such behavioural intervention in agriculture is underway as the government with technical assistance from MAGP will undertake the Special Emphasis Programme (SEP): Rapid Adoption of Horticulture. It aims to motivate farmers to adopt tunnel farming of high-value agricultural products.

Agriculture specialists claim SEP will lead to resultant increases in income and employment as well as development and growth along the whole food supply chain.