Marketable Surplus Function: A Study of the Behaviour of West Pakistan Farmers

Food shortages have become a harassing problem for Pakistan. Though foodgrains, received under the provision of United States Public Law 480, have reduced the immediacy of the problem considerably, it is necessary that this breathing space provided by aid be used to understand the nature and magnitude of the problem and to attempt solutions of it. One aspect of the problem is, of course, the general inadequacy of the total production to meet the overall food requirements. The general concern about increasing the volume of total production, and the whole range of policies directed towards this, spotlight one facet of the problem. The other aspect is the release from subsistence consumption of increasing amounts of food output for the market as more and more people are transferred to the urban centres and made dependent on the market. Success in solving the first aspect of the problem may not necessarily lead to any relaxation of the second.