A Golden Tragedy
By:Maarij Ali Tarar
Cruising on the M2 motorway through the fertile tracts of central Punjab in winter, one is likely to see fields of green wheat stretching to the horizon. Come spring, these young green saplings will have matured into golden stalks, ready to deliver their fat grains into the calloused hands of the farmers. Of courses, it is also in spring, as farmers begin harvesting, that a farce on a grand scale begins to play out.
This farce is the Punjab government’s wheat subsidy programme, a series of procurements and releases ostensibly to benefit the small farmer and poor urban consumer. In reality, however, each and every facet of this complex mechanism is designed to benefit large farmers...
