Agriculture sector meets full-year growth target

KARACHI:  Agriculture sector showed significant growth of 3.46 percent during the current fiscal year 2016-17 as against the set target of 3.5 percent, Economic Survey revealed on Thursday.

During the period under review all major crops including wheat, rice, sugarcane, cotton and maize recorded positive growth in their respective outputs. “The positive growth was attributed to the greater availability of agriculture inputs like water, agriculture credit and intensive fertilizers off take,” it added.

“The crops subsector comprises of 37.22 percent of agriculture sector and is the basic driver of growth of the agriculture sector as well as GDP on the whole. Crops sub sector recorded a growth of 3.02 percent as compared to the growth of (-4.97) percent last year.”

The growth in crops was registered at 3.02 percent against the negative growth of 4.97 percent during the same period last year. The growth of sub sector of important crops grew 4.12 percent, other crops and cotton ginning posted growths of 0.12percent and 5.59 percent, respectively.

Other sub sectors of agriculture like livestock, forestry and fishing posted growth of 3.43 percent, 14.49 percent and 1.23percent, respectively. The per acre crop production also witnessed increasing trend as maize production increased 16.30 percent against 6.77percent of last year.

The sugarcane production grew 12.41 percent against 4.23percent, cotton 7.59 percent against negative growth of 28.96 and rice 0.71 percent against negative growth of 2.88 percent of last year.

Other crops, which accounted for 11.03 percent in value addition, grew by 0.21 percent during current fiscal year against0.59 percent during the same period last year. However, during the period under review the production of vegetables and oilseeds posted negative growth of 0.73 percent and5.93 percent, respectively.

Major crops, which include cotton, wheat, sugarcane and rice, accounted for 23.85 percent of value added of agriculture, its share in GDP is 4.66 percent. Important crops recorded a growth of 4.12 percent in FY2017 as compared to (-5.47) percent last year.

Other crops have contributed 11.03 percent in agriculture sector and its share in GDP is 2.15 percent in FY 2017. This subsector has registered a growth of 0.21 percent against the growth of 0.59 percent last year.

Cotton Ginning has a 2.34 percent contribution in agriculture sector and in GDP its share is 0.46 percent. This sub-sector grew at 5.59 percent as compared to negative growth of (-22.12) percent.

“Livestock’s share in agriculture sector stood at 58.33 percent while it contributes 11.39 percent in the GDP,” said the Economic Survey of Pakistan. Livestock during outgoing fiscal year grew by 3.43 percent as compared to 3.36 percent last year.

Forestry subsector has registered a growth of 14.49 percent as compared to growth of 14.31 percent last year. Fisheries contribute 2.12 percent in agriculture and its share in GDP is 0.41 percent; its growth remained at moderate 1.23 percent against the growth of 3.25 percent last year.