The agriculture sector has always been a major contributor to the national economy in Pakistan. According to official data, it has contributed 18.9 percent, since 2010, to the GDP (gross domestic product) down from about 40 percent in early ’60s. It provides livelihood to 42.3 percent of the labour force. While agriculture has traditionally been called the backbone of Pakistan’s economic growth, agriculturists say the sector is facing tremendous problems.

Major crops (wheat, rice, sugarcane, maize and cotton) account for 23.60 percent of value addition in agriculture sector and 4.45 percent in the GDP. The other crops account for 10.80 percent in value addition in agriculture sector and 2.04 percent in the GDP.

During 2017-18, agriculture sector recorded a remarkable growth of 3.81 percent (lower than 4.4 percent in the ‘90s). Given the high population growth rate, this is indeed not great. Poverty remains high in the agriculture sector and is currently close to 30 percent. Food security is consequently becoming a major issue for a population of more than 212 million people.

According to the 6^th Population and Housing Census of Pakistan 2017, the country’s population is growing at a rate of 2.4 percent per annum. The population of Pakistan is projected to be 228.9 million in 2025 and 250.2 million in 2050. The high increase in population is raising the demand for agricultural products, making food security a major issue. The global food security index shows that Pakistan has an overall score of 49.1 and an affordability index of 47.6 and ranks 77th in the world. Nearly 22 percent of its population is undernourished.

Experts suggests focus on four areas in evaluating an agriculture sector: nature or climate change, supportive government policies, management practices and availability of certified seeds, pesticides and innovative technologies.

Environmentalist Sardar Asif Ali Sial says Pakistan’s climate change challenges include a heightened variability of monsoons, the likely impact of receding Himalayan glaciers on the Indus River system, the decreased capacity of water reservoirs, and extreme events including floods and droughts.

He says climate change poses serious challenges to agriculture in Pakistan. “There are clear indications that agriculture sector will continue to be vulnerable to climate change. Well planned policies are required over the coming years to mitigate the problems”, Sial adds.

Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) warned in 2016 that the country cold run dry by 2025. A UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) 2016 report says that water scarcity is currently a bigger threat for Pakistan than terrorism.

The National Nutrition Survey 2018 showed that 36.9 percent of the population face food insecurity and thousands every night go to bed hungry. A LEAD-Pakistan report says that the food and agriculture systems are depleting with regards to both sustainability and hunger prevention. Farming alone takes the lion’s share of available water; rivers and aquifers are being abused; some of the land previously used for food production has been lost to human settlement. Price hikes over the last five to six years have pushed thousands into destitution. There are signs of more of the same in the near future. The situation could easily become unmanageable and lead to life threatening shortages of food due to either land or water shortages or both. Pakistan faces an impossible challenge of trying to feed its projected populace.

Last month, under the banner of Pakistan Kissan Ittehad, hundreds of farmers staged a protest demonstration in Lahore. They demanded an escalation in support prices of several crops, mainly sugarcane. Pakistan Kissan Ittehad chairman Chaudhry Munir says that agriculture sector has been devastated in the last couple of years.

“The cotton crop yield has been nearly 50 percent of the target. The government had set a harvest goal of 8.5 million bales of cotton but only 4.7 million bales were produced in the end. In 1990s, the harvest used to be more than 15 million a year”, he says.

Pakistan is among the top five producers of cotton in the world. Nearly 1.3 million farmers are directly associated with this crop. The crop provides the primary feedstock for Pakistan’s largest industrial sector, textile, which accounts for nearly half of the export earnings of the country.

Despite the massive reliance on cotton, the area under the crop has fallen from 2.9m to 2.5m hectares over the last five years. It went down by 4 percen this year if official statistics are to be believed. The farmers are replacing area under cotton cultivation with sugarcane and rice for better incentives, especially in the Punjab, says Munir. “Unfortunately, now sugarcane growers are in the streets as there is no government policy to protect us”, he adds.

Pakistan has primarily two cropping seasons: the Kharif, with a sowing season from April to June and harvest in October to December; and the Rabi, which begins in October to December and ends in April to May. Wheat is one of the foremost Rabi crops of the country along with lentils, tobacco, rapeseed, barley and mustard; rice, sugarcane, cotton and maize are the major Kharif crops.

Wheat farmers in Pakistan face many challenges. Agriculturist Mian Umair says that support price has always been a burning issue for the farmers. Recently, the Punjab government has raised the support price to 1,650 rupees per 40 kg and Sindh government 2,000 rupees per 40 kg.

“The price is not good enough. The farmers have to incur huge costs on fertilisers and other inputs. They are not interested in selling their produce to the Punjab government at this rate”, he says.

Despite a slight boost in wheat production Pakistan still fell short of its target of 27 million tonnes for the current year, says a Global Agricultural Information Network report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

FAO’s (Food and Agriculture Organisation) review report says wheat yields in Pakistan remain low, lagging behind those in other countries with comparable agro-climatic conditions. “Pakistan could increase annual wheat production to 32.5 to 38 million tonnes from the area currently planted. However, any policies and support programmes aimed at increasing wheat productivity must take into account existing constraints in the wheat supply chain”.

Pakistan’s rice exports have increased after India applied lockdown measures in response to Covid-19. The rice exports increased 59 percent in April 2020 to $420 million, the USDA report says.

Per-hectare yield of primary crops is still a challenge to overcome. To meet the second SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) of the United Nations, and to overcome hunger, achieve improved nutrition and food security and encourage sustainable agriculture, requires increased yields in many regions, including Pakistan.

Crop yield is directly linked to the quality and quantity of seeds. The efforts and hard work of farmers cannot hit a certain crop size and per-hectare yield if they do not get quality seeds.

The quality of crop seeds is far from the best, therefore, per-hectare yields are low and large pieces of land produce small volumes of crops, Pak Agro Seed Corporation head Omer Aftab tells TNS.

“Low quality seed means a higher cost of production. This ultimately impacts food inflation. A huge amount of money is spent on agricultural research without productive results”, he says.

Apart from low quality seed and inadequate agriculture research, Aftab says, problems like lack of modern agriculture technology, poor financial position of growers, waterlogging and salinity, high prices of pesticides and improper crop rotation must be addressed.

The author is a staff member. He can be reached at warraichshehryar@gmail.com