Agriculture sector needs technological revolution to keep feeding the rapidly growing population of Pakistan, writes Laraib Nisar.
Agricultural sector is indispensable to the Pakistan’s economic growth, food security, employment generation and poverty alleviation particularly, in the rural areas. It contributes 19.2 percent to the GDP and provides employment to around 38.5 percent of the labor force. In addition to providing livelihood to more than 65-70 percent of the population, agriculture sector is one of the main raw material providers for textile, leather, and other industries. The huge strategic significance of agriculture for Pakistan’s socio-economic and political development calls for holistic reforms to ensure inclusive and equitable progress of the country.
Multifaceted structural, policy, budgetary, administrative, and technological deficiencies have constrained Pakistan’s agricultural yields to the point that now Pakistan isn’t self-sufficient in wheat anymore, cotton yield has been declining for the last many years, and Basmati rice, the jugular vein of Pakistan’s agri-exports has been facing serious threats. The following steps can be taken to reform the agriculture system of Pakistan to utilize its fullest potential for the over-all development of the country:
Technological Transformation Of Agriculture Sector
A technological revolution in the agriculture sector, or smart agriculture, is needed by Pakistan on an urgent basis, because technology can ensure the increase in productivity and efficiency of the inputs applied and of provision of food and fiber to the rapidly growing population of Pakistan. Important technologies including precision farming, sensor technology, and vertical farming can be adopted to enhance the resource base of agriculture and thus help in resolving many lingering issues.
Improving Agri-Food Value Chain
Enhancing the agri-food value chain is another much needed intervention to ensure sustainable growth of the agriculture sector. The food value chain comprises of the supply of inputs, production, storage and transport, processing, trading, distribution, and consumption. In Pakistan the food value chain is defective and causes market distortion and glut formation, which leads to shrinking of export market, low-income generation at all levels, persistent threats to country’s food security, and loss of employment for small landholders. The issue can be addressed by building the capacity of all stakeholders including input suppliers, farmers, transporters, processors, and traders especially on sanitary and phyto-sanitary protocols to make the produced good in line with the international standards. Moreover, establishment of credit-lines to facilitate the provision of concessional loans for strengthening storage and transport infrastructure to avoid post-harvest losses and glut market should also be considered by the relevant policymakers. The farmers should be encouraged to establish cooperative societies for accessing cutting-edge agricultural technologies.
Revamping Livestock Sector
Livestock is the largest sub-sector of agriculture. It contributed 60.1% to total agricultural value addition and 11.5% to GDP in FY20-21. Unfortunately, the sector is largely ignored by the agricultural policymakers as huge emphasis is put on the crop sector. The livestock sector deserves to be treated on merit. The livestock sector can be revamped by increasing its budgetary share within the agriculture sector, improving the genetic makeup of farm animals, investing in nutrition and healthcare of animals, improving marketing practices, and training the livestock farmers.
Agriculture Sector: Investment in Research and Development:
Research and development (R&D) are indispensable for the development of varieties and breeds of crops as well as livestock. Unfortunately, in Pakistan this sector s largely neglected, especially in the agriculture sector. Agricultural scientists working in research institutions are highly disincentivized to compete with private sectors. There is an urgent need to review the organizational setup and restructure these institutions in order to incentivize efficiency and performance and punish inefficiency in variety of breeds. Teaching, research, and extension are three pillars of agriculture, and success cannot be achieved unless these pillars are mutually connected.
Agriculture must grow 5% annually to sustain 7-8% GDP growth which is essential for poverty reduction and requisite employment generation to properly capitalize on the youth bulge. Cross-departmental and inter-provincial collaboration under centrally-supervised long-term planning along with improvement in the legislative, administrative, and regulatory business atmosphere and the government-led financial, and infrastructural facilitation of farmers can help in revitalizing the performance of the agriculture sector and help Pakistan fight problems like stagnant economic growth and development.
The author Laraib Nisar is a Defense and Strategic Studies’ graduate, working as a Program Coordinator at the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), Islamabad.
