It contributes about 21 percent to GDP and accounted for about 45 percent of total employment in the country. About two third of Pakistan's population lives in rural areas and is directly or indirectly dependent upon agriculture for its livelihood. Therefore, any meaningful effort for social development and poverty alleviation must address issues of agricultural production and marketing. The foreign exchange earning from merchandise exports is 45 percent of total exports of Pakistan.
The total land area in Pakistan is about 803,940 square kilometers. About 48 million hectares, or 60 percent, is often classified as unusable for forestry or agriculture consists mostly of deserts, mountain slopes, and urban settlements. About 21.9 million hectares were cultivated in FY 1992. Around 70 percent of the cropped area was in Punjab, followed by perhaps 20 percent in Sindh, less than 10 percent in the North-West Frontier Province, and only 1 percent in Balochistan.
There are four seasons in Pakistan ie summer, winter, autumn and spring that are good for growing different crops in the country. There are two crop seasons in the country ie rabbi and kharif. Pakistan's principal natural resources are arable land and water. About 25 percent of the country's total land area is under cultivation and is watered by one of the largest irrigation systems in the world.
According to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation data, Pakistan is one of the world's largest producers and suppliers major crops. The data shows that Pakistan is world's second largest producer and suppliers of chickpea, fourth in apricot, fourth in cotton, fourth in sugarcane, fifth in milk, fifty in onion, sixth in date palm, seventh in mango, eighth in tangerines, mandarin oranges, Clementine, eighth in rice, ninth in wheat and tenth in oranges. Pakistan ranks fifth in the Muslim world and twentieth world-wide in farm output.
The most important crops are wheat, sugarcane, cotton and rice, which together account for more than 75 percent of the value of total crop output. Pakistan's largest food crop is wheat. In 2005, Pakistan produced 21,591,400 metric tons of wheat, more than all of Africa (20,304,585 metric tons) and nearly as much as all of South America (24,557,784 metric tons).
Pakistan is a net food exporter, except in occasional years when its harvest is adversely affected by droughts. Pakistan exports rice, cotton, fish, fruits (especially Oranges and Mangoes), and vegetables and imports vegetable oil, wheat, cotton, pulses and consumer foods. The country is Asia's largest camel market, second-largest apricot and ghee market and third-largest cotton, onion and milk market.
The economic importance of agriculture has declined since independence, when its share of GDP was around 53%. Following the poor harvest of 1993, the government introduced agriculture assistance policies, including increased support prices for many agricultural commodities and expanded availability of agricultural credit. From 1993 to 1997, real growth in the agricultural sector averaged 5.7 percent but has since declined to about 4 percent. Agricultural reforms, including increased wheat and oilseed production, play a central role in the government's economic reform package.
Much of the Pakistan's agriculture output is utilised by the country's growing processed-food industry. The value of processed retail food sales has grown 12 percent annually during the nineties and was estimated at over $1 billion in 2000, although supermarkets accounted for just over 10 percent of the outlets.
The Federal Bureau of Statistics provisionally valued major crop yields at Rs 504,868 million in 2005 thus registering over 55 percent growth since 2000 while minor crop yields were valued at Rs 184,707 million in 2005 thus registering over 41 percent growth since 2000. The exports related to the agriculture sector in 2009-10 are Rs 288.18 billion including food grains, vegetables, fruits, tobacco, fisheries products, spices and livestock.
According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan the livestock sector contributes about half of the value added in the agriculture sector, amounting to nearly 11 per cent of Pakistan's GDP, which is more than the crop sector. Fishery and fishing industry plays an important role in the national economy of Pakistan. With a coastline of about 814 km, Pakistan has enough fishery resources that remain to be fully developed. It is also a major source of export earning.
About only four percent of land in Pakistan is covered with forest. The forest of Pakistan are a main source of food, lumber, paper, fuel wood, latex, medicine as well as used for purposes of wildlife conservation and ecotourism. The agriculture suffers from many problems as it has been neglected during the last many decades. The low productivity, old and poor quality seed, restricted international market access, inefficient water use and low capital-labour ratio are some of the major problems being faced by the agriculture sector in Pakistan.
These problems are the result of decades of neglect that has been the fate of agriculture in general and agricultural research in particular. Partly, this neglect is due to the fact that farmers, especially small and medium size farmers, have limited opportunities to articulate their interest and that their contribution to policy process in Pakistan has been at best marginal. It is hardly surprising, then, that Pakistan ranks 25th in the world in terms of total agricultural output despite the good quality of its land and its extensive irrigation network in Punjab and Sindh provinces.
There are some major causes which are continuously restricting agricultural growth in the country. Pakistan has low yield per acre due to use of the old methods of cultivation and harvesting and the average crop in Pakistan is just 1/4th of that of advance states. The water wastage ratio is high in the country. The irrigation system of Pakistan also needs improvement as about 67 percent of the land is irrigated with canals. Per acre yield in the developed countries is much higher than Pakistan.
To solve these problems being faced by the country's most important agriculture sector, the feudalism should be abolished and lands should be allotted to poor farmers. This will enhance the productivity and per acre yield of all the crops in Pakistan. Taxes should be levied on Agricultural income but not without devising limit of land holding. Otherwise it would directly affect the poor farmers.
There is a need to form and adopt a new agricultural policy and the small farmer must be focused. The government should focus to solve the problems of small farmers to enhance productivity and per acre yield. The government should announce a productivity enhancement programme and different agricultural zones should be introduced in the different parts of the country. The government can easily introduce different zones for cotton, wheat, sugarcane, maize, rice, mangoes, citrus fruits, date palms and others. Mostly areas are known for cultivation of various crops and it not is a difficult task to establish special zones for these crops.
There is also lack of storage facilities in the country and there is need to establish modern storage facilities in the country. The transportation system also needs to improve and early and safe transportation of different crops would help to safe huge losses occurred in traditional old means of transportations.
The government should also introduce corporate farming in the country and big local and multinational companies should be encouraged to invest in the country's agriculture sector. With the participation of multinational companies, productivity and per acre yield would increase in the country.
The government should provide facilities to the small farmers to increase the productivity. They should be provided latest machinery, new and quality seeds. The small farmers should also be provided the basic know how about the modern methods of agriculture so that they can adopt these to enhance productivity. The water shortage issue also effect productivity and there is need to construct more dams in the country to enhance water storage capacity.
Pakistan is experiencing large water wastage. The old methods of irrigation with flood water are still being used by the farmer who wastes about 50 to 60 percent of water. The recent flood which is biggest of this century bestowed Pakistan a gig resource of water, but the lack of water reservoirs have wasted it carelessly. A new irrigation system called drip irrigation system has been introduced in many parts of the world. This not only saves water but also gives proper quantity of water according to the needs of plants. But Pakistan is not familiar with it yet.
Water logging and salinity Water logging and salinity is expanding with every passing day. Government of Pakistan has not taken any step to resolve this issue. With the decreasing storage capacity of dams due to silt accumulation the farmers, therefore, are installing more and more tube wells to irrigate their crops. This is another reason behind salinity is spreading in the major areas of Punjab and Sindh.
Pakistan needs more dams on Indus, Jehlum and Chenab rivers. This will enhance not only the storage capacity of water but also will minimise the per acre cost of all the crops. This act will also lessen the salinity chances of the lands as less number of tube well water would be used to irrigate the lands which are expected to be saline. A paradigm shifts are needed in government policies and the legal and institutional framework of water management if water use is to improve and those effective changes can fruit very big gains in agriculture output.
Because of serious threats to irrigation system, the wise use of available water resources has become essential. Planning, design, and operation of land reclamation projects and irrigation system, therefore, have to take into account the new issues. At a time efficient organisation and planning of irrigation and drainage system, is one of the most critical goals to achieve the widely accepted approach of integrated water resources management.