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.
.jpg "Pakistan's Agriculture")
.jpg "Agriculture area of Pakistan")
