KARACHI: The available potential in agriculture sector needs to be exploited to boost economic growth, job creation and encourging country’s exports as this sector contributes 22.7 percent to the GDP and provides employment to around 37.4 percent of the labour force, manager of rural landscape and environmental shield in protecting and upgrading the climate-resilient production and ecosystem.
According a report, for this purpose synchronization of programmes, reforming of institutions and encouraging public-private partnership, simplification of laws and investment reforms is the need of the hour. As federal and provincial investment should be based on their mandate/role in agriculture sector and national issues could be co-financed. Effective mechanisation stands vital to enhance productivity in this sector.
The improvement in agriculture production systems will increase farm income, reduce consumer prices and enhance diverse food supplies besides generating an exportable surplus. During the post COVID-19 period, the steep rise in the price of various commodities has further enhanced the importance of this sector, especially for the countries who are net importers of food items.
Realizing the importance of agriculture sector, the government encourage financial inclusion activities in the agriculture sector to adopt new approaches in order to boost the productivity and exports, thus enhancing a rural development-driven economic growth.
During 2021-22, agriculture sector recorded a remarkable growth of 4.40 percent and surpassed the target of 3.5 percent and last year’s growth of 3.48 percent. This growth is mainly driven by high yields, attractive output prices and supportive government policies, better availability of certified seeds, pesticides and agriculture credit. The crops sector outperformed and posted a growth of 6.58 percent during 2021-22 against 5.96 percent last year. At sub sectors level, important crops, other crops and cotton ginning depicted a significant growth of 7.24 percent, 5.44 percent and 9.19 percent, respectively, against last year’s growth of 5.83 percent, 8.27 percent and -13.08 percent.
The growth in production of important crops namely cotton, rice, sugarcane and maize are estimated at 17.9 percent, 10.7 percent, 9.4 percent and 19.0 percent respectively. The cotton crop increased from 7.1 million bales reported last year to 8.3 million bales during 2021-22; rice production increased from 8.4 million tonnes to 9.3 million tonnes; sugarcane production increased from 81.0 million tonnes to 88.7 million tonnes; maize production increased from 8.9 million tonnes to 10.6 million tonnes respectively, while wheat production decreased from 27.5 million tonnes to 26.4 million tonnes. Other crops having share of 13.86 percent in agriculture value addition and 3.14 percent in GDP, grew by 5.44 percent on the back of increase in the production of pulses.
Livestock having share of 61.89 percent in agriculture and 14.04 percent in GDP, recorded a growth of 3.26 percent in 2021-22 compared to 2.38 percent during same period last year.
Cotton contributes around 0.6 percent to GDP and 2.4 percent of the value added in agriculture. Over the last decade or so, area under cotton cultivation has been declined and replaced by its competing crops like sugarcane, maize, potato and rice. During 2021-22, the cropped area declined to 1,937 thousand hectares (6.8 percent) against last year’s 2,079 thousand hectares. Cotton production increased to 8.329 million bales (17.9 percent) against last year’s 7.064 million bales.
Sugarcane is of great significance for sugar related industries and 2nd largest agro-based industry after textile. Its production accounts for 3.7 percent in agriculture’s value addition and 0.8 percent in GDP. During 2021-22, sugarcane was cropped on 1,260 thousand hectares recorded an increase of 8.2 percent compared to last year’s sown area of 1,165 thousand hectares.
Rice is an important cash crop and after wheat and it is 2nd major staple food item consumed in the country. Its production comprises of 34 percent of basmati (fine) types and 66 percent of coarse types. During the last few years, production of coarse types is increasing as the farmers are bringing more areas under coarse hybrid types. It contributes 2.4 percent of value added in agriculture and 0.5 percent in GDP.
During 2021-22, the crop was sown on 3,537 thousand hectares, showing an increase of 6.1 percent as against 3,335 thousand hectares last year. The record high output of rice stood at 9.323 million tonnes during 2021-22, higher by 10.7 percent than last year’s production of 8.420 million tonnes. From the last couple of years, area under rice cultivation is witnessing rising trend.
Pakistan imports significant amounts of wheat, pulses, and oilseeds from the Russia and Ukraine. Last year, imports from Russia and Ukraine contributed for 77.3 percent of total wheat imports, 19.3 percent of total pulses imports, and 10.4 percent of total oilseed imports into the country. Moreover, although Pakistan is not primarily dependent on these two countries for fertilizers and fossil fuels, it is likely to bear the brunt of rising international prices for fertilizers and energy.