4. Conclusions

The paper at hand explained that agriculture in the 90s is not the same as 30 years ago. Instead of households which uniformly applied their labour an the land and lived an the proceeds of the land, today, we have a wide differentiation in agriculture or among the landcultivating households.
While in former times the focus of all households was an the land, and differences in access to land caused differences in income, today, these differences concern not only the control of land, but also the basis of livelihood and interest in agriculture.

Nowadays, not everybody who cultivates some land is really interested in agriculture. Not every young man, especially, is happy if he can continue to cultivate his father's land. He may do so if the land is of sufficient size and of good quality. But if the land is small, and soil and irrigation are poor, he may more likely feel forced to continue cultivation in the absence of alternatives. However, many of them will continuously look for alternatives, or at least for a mix of income sources, and hundreds of' thousands are successful sooner or later.


Under such conditions of differentiation in agriculture and in the cultivators' interest. a transition from the sectoral approach to a more regional approach in the development efforts seem to be indicated. Moreover, a more careful analysis of target groups regarding their conditions, interest and requirements is a precondition if policies are to be successful.
This offers the opportunity to concentrate resources and instruments of agricultural policy where they are needed, wanted and effective in increasing the income of cultivators and the production of foodstuffs. For the other areas, where instruments of agricultural policy cannot be effective because of different circumstances and requirements of the people concerned, let us not waste the scarce resources of agricultural policy, but apply other policies to those whose main focus is outside agriculture. This differentiation will economize development funds and make them more effective as far as productivity impact as improvement of livelihood is concerned.

This is the more important as the differentiation process has progressed differently in various regions, but has advanced considerably overall. Already at the time of the 1980 census, of the 4 million land cultivating holdings in Pakistan, probably more than 75 % belonged to the group not having sufficient land and whose interest in agriculture and agricultural policy measures is, therefore, limited. This means that, for more than
3/4, not agricultural policy proper, but other Instruments are appropriate for meeting their requirements and improving their conditions.

If this development continues and all indications make me believe that it will continue , we may well be experiencing today the last generation practicing real peasant agriculture in this country.

In this case, the answer to the question `What is agriculture?' has to differ today from that given 30 years ago. And, together with this answer, the mix of policy Instruments for the rural population has to change constantly.