Report Of The Food And Agriculture Commission (Review Article)

The Report of the Food and Agriculture Commission1 is the most comprehensive official study of the problems of food and agriculture undertaken in Pakistan since independence. The Report contains twelve chapters of which six are devoted to policy recommendations. The Report also contains seven appendices of which Appendix IV is the Interim Report of the Commission which was submitted to the Government in February 1960. The methods followed by the Commission in its enquiry are similar to those followed by agricultural commissions in the past. Questionnaires were circulated to government agencies, officials and members of the public likely to possess specialized knowledge in the field of food and agriculture. Also, fairly extensive tours were undertaken by members of the Commission all over the country to gain first-hand knowledge of the problems of agriculture; they visited agricultural colleges, research institutes, experimental stations, and seed and livestock farms, holding discussions with government officials and others on a wide range of topics. An interesting feature of the enquiry was the setting-up of seventeen advisory panels on particular topics composed almost entirely of officials having specialized knowledge or interest in the field in question. A few non-officials were also included in the panels but their number was very few. Unfortunately, the reports of the panels, which were presumably responsible for much of the technical work on which the Commission drew for their elucidation of the problems in hand as well as for policy recommendations, are not made available in the report.