Agriculture in Pakistan

Pakistan lies between 23 and 37 degrees north latitudes and 61 and 76 degree east longitudes. The country enjoys considerable measures of climatic variation. Agriculture is the main stay of our economy. Its contribution in GDP was 53.2 percent in 1949-50. With accelerated developments in other sectors of economy as manufacturing, trade, communication and others, the share of agriculture sector decreased over years was 24.9 percent in 2008. Agriculture sector is also the largest sector for manpower employment. The annual growth rate in agricultural sector over last five decades has remained at 3.4 percent per annum.

The total cultivated area is more than 21 million hectares about 80 percent of this area is more than 21 million hectares about 80 percent of this area is irrigated and rest is depended on rains. The total number of agricultural farms is 4.07million. The farms with area less than 5 ha are termed as small farms or subsistence farms. The data show that as small farms or subsistence farms. The data show that the number of owner cultivator in Pakistan is 55 percent and they cultivate 52 percent of the land area. The rest of the 45 percent farms and 48 percent of the area is cultivates by owner-cum-tenant or landless tenants. With further fragmentation of land, the number of landless farmers are rapidly increasing. With diversification of rural pursuits in Pakistan, a stage has reached wherein it is getting difficult to find tenants to cultivate the land, a situation on the other extreme a couple of decades earlier. The average land use intensity in Pakistan is 89 percent and average cropping intensity is 122 per cent.

              There are two growing reason in Pakistan, i.e Kharif (Summer) and Rabi(Winter). The food grains as wheat, rive, jowar, bajra, maize occupy 54 percent of the total cropped area. The cash crops (cotton, sugarcane, rice and tobacco) and pulses occupy 18 percent and 7 percent of the cropping area respectively.

            A major challenge would be to reverse the degradation of natural resources cause by defoliation, overgrazing and mimeses damaging effects of agro-chemical on the environment. In the livestock sub-sector, programs for livestock research, extension, diseases control and productivity improvement will be implemented. In research, the use of biotechnology in improving crop and livestock productivity will be promoted.