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Independence Day Supplement: A glimpse of the agricultural scene
Siraj-ul-Hassan
August 14 2002 : Despite taking appreciable strides in other sectors of economic activities, Pakistan is still a predominantly agricultural country.
On Independence both wings of the country (then called East Pakistan and West Pakistan) inherited crop wealth in abundance and industrial wealth just nominal. The important crops grown in the Eastern Wing comprised rice, tea, jute, arecanut and betel leaves while West Pakistan's main crops included
cotton, foodgrains (wheat, rice, gram and pulses).
In the livestock sub-sector, it was fish and other sea-food like lobster and shrimps, raised in the eastern wing and goat, sheep and cattle along with their products constituted the livestock wealth of the western wing.
Consequent on the loss of eastern wing in 1971, Pakistan was deprived of its crop and livestock wealth generating there.
Having done my duty to introduce the subject as above, let me describe agricultural outlook of only western wing now known as Pakistan.
The agriculture contributes about 25 percent to GDP, accounts for 56 percent (including both primary commodities and their made-ups) of total exports and employs over 50 percent of total labour force.
In the farm sector, crop production constitutes about 70 percent of the national agricultural GDP while livestock products make up most of the balance of 30 percent.
The average annual growth rate of farm value added was 3.9 percent during the three and a half decades ending 1988. But it was not steady due to a number of factors like weather conditions, rapid technical changes, pattern of pricing and policy shifts.
The main challenge faced by the agriculture sector was to increase farm production at a rate faster than that required to feed the ever-increasing human population.
Farming pattern: It is a mix of a complex system representing alternative production strategies. On the one extreme, large and mechanised farms having easy access to virtually all production factors, are operated on somewhat commercial lines.
On the other end, a large number of small and subsistence farmers mainly produce to achieve farm level self-sufficiency over time.
Cropping system also vary widely due to variations in agri-climatic and soil conditions, wheat is the major crop grown in all cropping regions during the winter season.
In the summer season, rice, cotton and maize crops are cultivated. Crop production takes place both on irrigated and barani lands with former consisting about 80 percent of total agricultural production.
Strategies for agricultural development generally reflect the speed with which changes in the sector from traditional to modern are expected to occur. These changes usually portray the outcome of an interaction of major physical, technological and institutional factors.
A review of structure and performance of these factors highlighting important policy issues and constraints restricting the realisation of the full agricultural potential, is briefly given below.
Agricultural land: Land is a vital non-renewable resource. Pakistan's total agricultural area is 79.61 million hectares of which only 26 percent constituting 20.92 million hectares, is cultivated due to scarcity of
irrigation water. Since 1947 (Independence) the total cultivated area has increased by a little more than 40 percent.
The cropped area consisting of net sown area and area sown more than once has increased from 11.63 million hectares in 1947-48 to 20.90 million hectares in 1988-89. Along with these gains, cultivatable waste also increased.
Of the total cultivated area about 77 percent (16.06 million hectares) is irrigated while the rest 33 percent is rain-fed.
The canal commanded area is classified in four categories from class I to Class IV according to the extent of soil limitation. Approximately, 30.6 percent of the canal command area (CCA) falls under category I, 40.1 percent under category II, 15.7 percent under category III and 13.6 percent under category IV.
Water: Availability of water for crop production is predominantly made by means of a well-laid irrigation system. It encompasses the Indus River and its tributaries, three major storage reservoirs, 19 barrages/headworks, 12 link canals, 43 canal commands covering about 90,000 chaks. The total length
of the canal system is about 40,000 miles with water courses and field ditches running another 1.0 million miles.
The three major reservoirs, Mangla, Tarbela and Chashma, were built by Pakistan after the World Bank sponsored Indus Water Treaty signed between India and Pakistan. No Significant irrigation development came about outside the Indus plains except for a few small irrigation schemes in NWFP and a few
small storages in the Punjab and Sindh.
For irrigation purposes both surface and ground water is used with their shares changing over time. The total irrigation water supply at farm gate increased by about 76 percent from 63.87 MAF in 1965-66 to 112.22 MAF in 1987-88.
Ground water is available both from private and public
tubewells. Performance of private tubewells is more impressive than that of the public
tubewells. Water supply from public tubewells increased from 0.47 MAF in 1960-61 to 7.75 MAF in 1986-87 while from the private tubewells increased from 3.70 MAF to 27.02 MAF during the same period.
Growth in the total availability of irrigated water not only increased the irrigated area but also enhanced per hectare availability of water within the expanded area. Thus, addition in irrigated water supplies led both extension of irrigation to new areas as well as to increase in the intensity of farming.
Notwithstanding the strides taken in increasing the supply of irrigation water, full potential of both surface and ground water resources has not so far been exploited. No sizeable dam was built after Tarbela not only because of financial constraints but more importantly on account of lack of political consensus. Consequently, about 30 million MAF of Kharif water is run down into the sea.
Pakistan surface irrigation system is perhaps the largest gravity flow system in the world, but its economic output per unit of water diverted at the source is also perhaps the lowest in the world. Some of the important factors for low economic efficiency are (a) a wide gap between the time of supply of water and time when it is needed, (b) excessive water losses, (c) low irrigation efficiency, (d) inadequate drainage, (e) outdated land and water management practices, (f) fragmented land holdings, and (g) twin menace of waterlogging and salinity.
Therefore, along with the focus to rehabilitate badly deteriorated segments of the system and introduction of improved management practices, it is also essential that political conflict over the distribution of water be resolved as early as possible to achieve the desired results.
Labour: Notwithstanding the overall economic development in the country, agriculture still engages about 60 percent of labour force according to successive labour force surveys. It declined to 52 percent in 1988-89 due to irrigation from agriculture to other sectors. Still agricultural labour force was distinctly higher than that employed in mining and manufacturing.
Historically, the average annual growth rate of the total labour force as well as that of employed in agriculture has been greater than that of the cropped areas which caused considerable pressure on the cropped area.
Nevertheless, labour productivity increased over time because of biological and chemical technologies. But relative to manufacturing increase in value added per worker in agriculture was much lower.
Due to deprivation of a reasonable physical infrastructure in the rural areas, a vast majority of the labour force is also lagging behind in elementary education and skill development. Farmers, now facing complex and changing technologies and highly unstable and confusing price signals, are therefore not able to cope with the pace of change or exploit the full potential of such essential inputs as chemical fertiliser and irrigation water. At the same time, the economic policy framework within which farmers have to make their decisions on production, consumption and exchange, changes so frequently and abruptly that it only serves to compound their difficulties.
If agriculture is to gain momentum for growth then a more stable and realistic approach, which may give adequate attention to human resource development as well, is now indispensable.
Capital: Both public and private sectors make investments to uplift agriculture. Public sector investments mainly focus on the development of irrigation and drainage facilities, agricultural research and extension,
marketing and storage while private sector investment meets on-farm requirements.
Historically, the direct public investment in agriculture kept on declining every five-year period. In the First Plan it was 9.5 percent of the overall public investment expenditure which declined to 4 percent in the Fifth Plan and still lower at 3 percent subsequently. This progressive decrease naturally created a substantial backlog of development adversely affecting agricultural productive capacity in the past.
Private capital investment, on the contrary, increased from Rs 463 million in 1970-71 to Rs 7,402 million in 1986-87. Its share in total fixed investment ranged between 6 and 11 percent during this period.
Both the public and private funding for agriculture is now looking up at the rate projected by the National Commission Agricultural
(NCA).
Physical inputs: Apart from the traditional agricultural inputs indicated above, agriculture uplift also requires the judicious use of other variable inputs such as seed,
fertiliser, plant protection, credit, mechanisation,
marketing and agri-business.
Policy environments: The major policy elements of agricultural incentives include regulating the support and release prices for outputs, input subsidies, import/export duties and setting regulations and institutions that
encourage the production, control consumption and determine exportable surpluses of important commodities.
Area and production: After dealing with the prerequisites of streamlining the growth of agriculture, it seems necessary to examine as to how did agriculture fare during a pretty long span of time (from 1991-92 to 2001-02).
Area and production of major agricultural crops from 1991-92 to 2001-02 are given in the following table. A:
It will be seen that during the last 10-year period under review production of various crops increased or decreased as shown in Table B:
A perusal of the above figures would show that although in most cases production has increased in varying degree, yet the increase in some important crops like sugarcane and rapeseed and mustard being only 12.8
percent and 22.7 percent is of great concern. That is why sugar and edible oil need to be imported each year. And what is more disturbing is the shortfall of 20 percent in gram and 18.1 percent in cotton production. Among cereals after wheat and rice, gram enjoys a unique position as it is used
both as food grain and pulse.
Shortage in cotton production if continued unabated would badly affect our textile industry which has to depend on the imported fibre off and on.
This not-too-happy scenario of agriculture (our basic industry) which should be an eye-opener to all concerned. Achieving success in producing wheat more than our domestic requirements, should not be considered sufficient for uplifting our agriculture. Therefore, unstinted efforts are required to boost
our agriculture by employing modern technology and other necessary measures for the welfare of the tillers of the soil as well as for our overall prosperity.
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TABLE-A
Area '000' Hectares
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CROPS 1991-92 1992-93 1993-94 1994-95
1995-96
Area Prod Area Prod. Area Prod. Area Prod. Area Prod.
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Rice 2,097 3,243 1,973 3,116 2,187 3,995 2,125 3,447
2,162 1,967
Wheat 7,878 15,684 8,300 16,157 8,034 8,034 15,213 8,170
17,002 16,907
Maize 848 1,203 808 1,008 879 1,213 890 1,318
881 1,283
Bajra 313 139 487 203 303 138 509 228
407 162
Juwar 383 225 403 238 365 242 438 263
418 255
Barley 149 140 160 158 151 146 165 164
172 174
Gram 997 513 1,048 347 1,085 411 1,065 559
1,119 680
Sugarcane 896 38,808 885 38,059 963 44,427 1,009 47,108
963 15,230
Rapeseed &
Mustard 287 220 285 207 268 197 301 229
320 255
Sesamum 70 29 82 34 73 32 80 36
90 40
Tobacco 54 97 58 100 57 100 47 81
46 80
Cotton product in
'000' Bales. 2,836 12,822 2,836 9,054 2,805 8,041 2,653 8,697
2,997 10,559
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Production '000' Tonnes
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1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-2000
2000-01
Area Prod Area Prod. Area Prod. Area Prod.
Area Prod.
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2,251 4,305 2,317 4,333 2,324 4,674 2,515 5,156
2,377 4,803
8,109 16,651 8,355 18,694 8,230 17,858 8,463 21,079
8,180 19,019
871 1,259 869 1,351 962 1,665 922 1,652
944 1,643
303 146 460 311 463 213 313 156
390 199
370 219 390 231 383 228 357 220
354 218
152 150 163 174 137 137 124 118
108 92
1,110 594 1,102 767 1,077 698 972 565
905 397
965 41,998 1,056 53,104 1,155 55,111 1,010 46,333 961
43,606
354 286 340 292 327 279 327 297
294 273
100 45 96 43 71 32 72 35
101 91
49 92 52 99 57 109 56 108
54 100
3,149 9,374 2,960 9,184 2,923 8,700 2,983 11,240
2,928 10,732
Source: Ministry of Food and Agriculture, GOP
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Table B
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CROP INCREASE PERCENTAGE DECREASE PERCENTAGE
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Rice 46.9 -
Wheat 20.0 -
Maize 33.3 -
Bajra 42.8 -
Guwar - 3.1
Barley 21.4 -
Gram - 20.0
Sugarcane 12.8 -
Rapeseed 22.7 -
& Mustard
Sesamum 200.0 -
Tobacco 3.1 -
Cotton - 18.1
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