By: Zahrah Nasir | March 11, 2013 .

With a population of over 190 million and growing, Pakistan is under increasing pressure on many fronts with food production, the provision of water, power and the raw materials necessary to keep the indigenous manufacturing industry up and running, obviously of paramount concern along with, it goes without saying, vast increases in the heath care, education and housing sectors too which, considered en mass, is an astronomical problem indeed.
The agricultural industry has always, since the country’s inception, been the backbone on which all else depends and, with a burgeoning population to feed - a frightening percentage of which is already malnourished due to a combination of escalating inflation and nutritional ignorance - a massive boost in food production is an emergency essential. That, unfortunately, those profiting from the manufacture and sale of chemical agricultural inputs and of GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) seeds are already poised to take quick advantage of.

The vast majority of farmers, be these actual landowners or tenants, are uneducated people who have, especially over the last two or three decades, been easily convinced by salesmen representing chemical agricultural inputs - these ranging from fertilisers through to lethally toxic herbicides and pesticides - that by investing in such products, they can increase yields, therefore profit margins, to an astonishing degree. And farmers have taken this enticing bait hook, line and sinker, often getting deeply into debt in the process.

A dire lack of education, amongst many of the sales agents too, means that they do not, on the whole, have any idea of the long-term consequences of their actions - on the soil itself, on the crops they produce or on their own and consumer’s health - and remain under the impression that the more toxins they apply, the more profit they will ultimately reap.

The frightening example of the horrendous situation, a situation completely arising from the exact same misconception, during the so-called ‘Green Revolution’ in Indian Punjab where resultant health issues - with cancers predominating - and bankruptcy have led and, it must be said, still lead to horrifyingly high rates of farmer suicide, is not publicised amongst the farming community here for the simple reason, it is presumed, that the word ‘India’ is, quite ridiculously given the circumstances, viewed with unwarranted suspicion and what are true stories of agricultural problems in Indian Punjab are considered to be nothing more than highly dubious propaganda here.

If our own Government Agricultural Department had any sense - or was the slightest bit concerned about the health and safety of farmers and consumers, plus, the sustainability of agricultural production over the years to come - all they need do is organise travelling video shows of where Indian agriculture went wrong in the over application of toxic chemicals and of the dire consequences of following in the exact same footsteps.

But no - this is far too sensible an idea to be taken up at any level, especially so as it would adversely affect the astronomical profits currently accrued to, for example, chemical fertiliser production units owned and operated by the armed forces and ‘spin-offs’ of the same.

Now, on top of chemical catastrophes - the majority of agricultural produce in the market is contaminated to an actively poisonous degree - there is the unholy spectre of GMO seeds being ‘dumped’ on Pakistan, despite these highly questionable ‘inventions’ having being totally banned, right across the board, in a number of eminently sensible countries around the world in the wake of scientific evidence that the world of GMO seeds is dangerously far from being all that is claimed by its main progenitors, such as Monsanto, but has, instead, distinctly Frankenstein connotations.

Successful seed purveyors, at the behest of multinational seed corporations and companies, are already responsible for the almost complete loss of indigenous seed varieties here - the remaining few are liable, unless action is taken, to be extinct very soon - having coerced both commercial and home growers to switch over to ‘improved’ hybrid varieties from which seed cannot realistically be saved but must, to the glee of its sellers, be purchased afresh each growing season. Seed saved from hybrid varieties does not produce the same standard of crop as the parent plants if, that it, it manages to crop at all.

Indigenous varieties - often referred to as ‘Heritage’ - on the other hand, are open pollinated varieties or species from which growers can save their own seed, year after year, without any deterioration in crop production as long, that is, as correct soil conditions are maintained.

The only ones to profit from these ‘Heritage’ species are, quite obviously, growers, which is why seed corporations are doing their level best to knock ‘Heritage’ on the head once and for all.

The latest twisted agricultural manoeuvre launched by those profiting from chemical agricultural inputs - these would, by the way, make even more if GMO seeds are allowed free reign here - is to viciously malign organic, totally chemical free, growing practices as are being taken up by an expanding number of ‘enlightened’ growers - commercial and private - around the planet and who, by the way, also use only ‘Heritage’ seeds as, naturally, they can make no profit from them at all.

For Pakistani agriculture to improve - as it must - the need of the hour is to educate farmers as to the real dangers of chemical reliance, of GMO and hybrid seeds and to make them realise that the only way for them to remain safely and financially afloat, is to implement the new, updated methods of sustainable organic agriculture for the benefit of all - except chemical input manufacturers and the sellers of GMO and hybrid seeds - concerned and to factor very real climate change into this completely natural equation.
n The writer is author of The Gun Tree: One Woman’s War (Oxford University Press, 2001) and lives in Bhurban. Email: zahrahnasir@hotmail.com

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Shahid Khalil


In 1961 the world was feeding 3.5 billion people by cultivating 1.37 billion hectares of land. A half century later, the world population had doubled to 7 billion, while land under cultivation increased by only 12 per cent to 1.53 billion hectares.

How, then, did agricultural production triple? This was done by increasing productivity. By getting more output from existing resources, global agriculture has grown, proving wrong past concerns that the world's population would exceed its food supply. In fact, at the global level, the long-run trend since at least 1900 has been one of increasing food abundance. In inflation-adjusted dollars, food prices fell by an average of 1 per cent per year over the course of the 20th century.

A recently released Food and Agriculture Organization report expresses concern about adequate availability of food for the developing economies. It points out that up till now the developed economies are producing more food than they consume. They might not spare the excess food they produce for food starved nations because they would be consuming it as bio fuel. The bulk of the agricultural productivity would have to come from developed world. Pakistan is also among the vulnerable countries as it does not produce enough edible oil to fulfill its domestic needs.

Things started changing on the food front at the start of this century. Around 2002, real food prices began to rise, and the shock was not merely a temporary one. We saw agricultural commodity prices spiking sharply in 2008, 2010, and again in 2012. Demand-side factors (including continued population growth, greater per capita consumption of meat, and diversion of crop commodities for bio fuel) and weather-induced production shocks (like the 2012 drought in North America) are certainly major forces behind the high and volatile prices of recent years. But the persistence of rising commodity prices has renewed concerns about whether agriculture is facing new constraints on growth. In fact, for major cereal grains like wheat and rice, average rates of yield growth have slowed from about 2 per cent per year in the 1970s and 1980s to about 1 per cent per year since 1990. Additionally, there is evidence that some developed countries have recently seen a slowing down of growth in agricultural total factor productivity (a broad measure of sector wide productivity), which has an effect on developing and developed countries alike.

A slowdown in agricultural productivity growth could signal rising food scarcity, higher commodity prices, and increased competition for the world's land, water, and energy resources. With such grave consequences, it is more urgent than ever to ensure agricultural productivity growth.

World agriculture has undergone some fundamental changes in the past few decades. One has been that many developing countries have greatly expanded their capacities in agricultural research and innovation. Combined with support from international agricultural research centers, this has led to the availability of improved technologies and practices for local farmers.
Complementing this have been institutional and policy reforms, improvements in farmer education and health, and investments in rural infrastructure, all of which help create an environment where new farm technologies and practices are adopted more rapidly. A second major development has been the changing location and composition of global agricultural production. With slower agricultural growth in developed countries and a significant increase in developing countries the balance was not greatly disturbed.

Greater productivity growth in developing countries' agriculture can certainly pull up the average for global productivity reduction in agricultural output from post-Soviet states; developing countries now account for a large and growing share of global agricultural production.

And, as rising incomes cause changes in the types of foods consumers demand, the share of staple food commodities in world agricultural production has declined. Two new studies found that the productivity growth rate has actually accelerated in recent decades, led by improved performance in developing countries. It follows, therefore, that future challenges to global food security, apart from long-term risks related to climate change, are more likely to be the result of uneven access to resources, technologies, and food than the world's ability to increase global agricultural production and food availability in the aggregate.

World agricultural production grew at an average annual rate of 2.4 per cent between 2001 and 2010, close to its historical average growth rate since the 1970s of 2.3 per cent per year. However, recent years demonstrate a period of accelerated growth that started around 1995, which, in turn, followed more than 20 years of gradually decreasing growth rates. The exceptionally slow growth observed in the 1990s reflected a sharp contraction in agricultural production in the former Soviet bloc, but the trend of declining agricultural growth in the decades prior to 1995 also includes a slowing of growth in some high-income countries, especially in Western Europe and Japan.

This slowing of growth in high-income and transition economies of the former Soviet bloc has led to a major geographic shift in where agricultural output was produced in those same countries, although they only comprised 33 per cent of the world's population at that time. Developing countries, on the other hand, with 76 per cent of the world population, produced just 44 per cent of total agricultural output. By 2010, the same high-income and transition economies produced 32 per cent of global agricultural output and held 21 per cent of world population. Developing countries accounted for 68 per cent of global agricultural output, with East, Southeast, and South Asia contributing 44 per cent (and comprising 52 per cent of world population),and Latin America, Africa, and West Asia contributing the remaining 24 per cent of global agricultural output (and comprising 27 per cent of world population).
Within developing regions, Northeast Asia (dominated by China) has sustained agricultural growth rates averaging more than 4 per cent per year since 1971. Southeast Asia, West Asia and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean also achieved rapid growth in agricultural output, at around 3 per cent per year, while agricultural growth in Africa south of the Sahara averaged significantly lower (2.4 per cent per year).

In the 1980s, about half of the total growth in global agriculture came from East, Southeast, and South Asia, a contribution that reached 70 per cent in the 1990s and 60 per cent in the 2000s. High income and transition countries contributed about 30 per cent of the growth in global agricultural supply in the 1980s, but this fell to practically zero in the 1990s (with negative growth in the transition countries during this decade) before recovering to about a 10 per cent share of global agricultural growth in the 2000s. The importance of Latin America and the Caribbean has increased over time, and, in the 2000s, the region accounted for nearly 17 per cent of the growth in global agriculture.

In addition to the shifting location of agricultural production, changes have occurred in its composition. While the share of livestock products (meat, milk, eggs, hides, and wool) in total agricultural output has remained stable (around 37 per cent from 1970 to 2009), the share of cereal grains has fallen significantly (from 25 to 21 per cent of the total). Meanwhile, production of horticultural and oil crops has grown rapidly, with the share of total output from fruits and vegetables rising from 16 to 22 per cent and oil crops from 6 to 8 per cent over the same period. The changing composition of global agricultural output reflects changes in the types of foods consumers are demanding.

With rising per capita incomes, especially in developing countries, demand is shifting from staple food grains to more vegetables and fruits, vegetable oils, and animal products (and the protein-rich animal-feed meals provided by oilseeds as a co-product from crushing). Cereal grains, however, continue to supply 70-80 per cent of the total caloric supply available for food, animal feed, and bio fuel manufacturing.

The shifting location of world agricultural production to developing countries and the changing composition of agricultural output toward more horticultural and oil crops have significant implications for global trends in agricultural productivity.

Increasingly, raising average global yields in crops and livestock relies on raising yields in developing countries. And moving production from relatively low-valued cereal crops to higher-valued horticultural crops can imply a rise in economic efficiency; by reallocating resources to produce commodities with greater value, farmers may improve productivity and income.

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The sugar mills have again deferred payments to the growers; the amount is as much as Rs 43 billion. Though this is an old form of exploitation, broadly speaking it remains a regular practice, in part because justice remains a scare commodity. It is not uncommon for the miller to deny a farmer his cash in order to strap him to his mill only, a stratagem to force him to keep on providing him with the crop the entire season through. The farmers’ circumstances are also often ignored. They are about transporting the sugarcane to the mills, as well as dealing with the unscrupulous middleman who would not stop short of extracting his ‘cut’ at the cost of the farmer’s due share of profits.

The agriculturists have been running from pillar to post to make their complaints heard but to no avail. The mills have to understand that the payments need to be made on time. This is necessary because not only the farmers need money to survive in this age of rampaging inflation but also to till the land for next crop. The mill owners often take the argument that payments to the growers can be made only after the government buys the stock of sugar; there is virtually no link between the two. Cash crop is meant to fetch payment when it is delivered, a factor without which there would not be any enticement for the growers to sweat over it the entire season.

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April 08, 2013 0


A present day farmer is struggling to eke out an existence, even though ironically he is the one who feeds the society at large. This is a poor reflection on the state where agriculture is the mainstay of economy. Consequently, a trend of migration to urban areas is picking up pace given the harsh circumstances that revolve around their lives like an albatross; loadshedding and water shortage are turning out to be the last nail in the coffin of agriculture.

Wheat being one of the main crops that makes up for the food basket, the troubles faced by the farmers is badly affecting the overall food supply. A meeting chaired by Caretaker Chief Minister Najam Sethi seemed cognisant of these problems while finalising the wheat procurement policy agreeing to set the target at 40 lakh tonnes, set to commence from April 29. It was good to note that he was particularly concerned about a longstanding issue faced by the farmers relating to shortage of gunny bags. Often times this results in wastage of harvest. The CM also gave the assurance that the procurement would be done in a transparent manner and that the middleman would be dealt with harshly. Still, special attention would be needed to ensure that things go exactly as planned. The farmers, once they have supplied the harvest are paid on time. And last but not the least, the government also has to stand ready; there should be enough storage facilities in order to stock the wheat.

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Since the year 2000, Pakistan's population has been growing at a rate that is higher than domestic food grain production. In view of the importance of wheat and rice in the diet in Pakistan, it is extremely important to estimate the future demand and supply of both cereals.

Pakistan's population has a high dependence on cereals to meet the daily requirement of food energy. Cereals account for 47 per cent of total calorie supply per capita, and the contribution of cereals to protein supply per capita is 46 per cent. Since the year 2000, Pakistan's population has been growing at 2.42 per cent per year, a rate that is higher than the growth of domestic food grain production (1.5 per cent per year). Findings of a UN agency suggest that the current rate of growth of food grain production may not be adequate to feed Pakistan's increasing population. Worldwide food price inflation and frequent natural disasters in the country have also had a negative impact on Pakistan's food security situation.

The World Food Summit (1996) defines food security as "when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life." This definition implies four major dimensions of food security: availability, accessibility, affordability, and sustainability.

Expenditure on cereal consumption accounts for about 20 per cent of total household food expenditure (approximately 15 per cent on wheat and 4 per cent on rice) in Pakistan. Poor households spend a larger proportion of their income on wheat (23 per cent of total income is spent on wheat consumption). However, the share of expenditure on rice (4 per cent) is almost the same for households in different income groups according to government of Pakistan statistics.

Wheat and rice are the major crops grown during the rabi (autumn) and kharif (spring) growing seasons, respectively. Wheat is grown over an area of 8.5 million hectares and accounts for more than 70 per cent of total food grain production in Pakistan. Rice occupies 2.4 million hectares, and its share of total food grain production is 18 per cent. Nearly 26 per cent of total households produce wheat, whereas nearly 98 per cent of households consume wheat. Government data shows that even among the wheat producers, 21.6 per cent are net buyers which means that they do not produce enough wheat to last the whole year. Or in some cases they sell their entire produce to generate cash for next crop and other living needs and buy wheat from the market on weekly or monthly basis.

Although the prices of wheat and rice in Pakistan have increased substantially since 2008, the increase in prices will only benefit households that produce more wheat or rice than they consume and that are net sellers of these cereals. According to a study by the UN interagency Assessment Mission, the number of people in Pakistan with inadequate food consumption (that is, less than 2,100 kilocalories per capita per day) rose from 72 million (45 per cent of the total population) in 2005-06 to 84 million (51 per cent) in 2008 as a result of increasing food prices. Thus, food price inflation has resulted in increasing food insecurity in the country. Although international markets provide a source of supply to meet demand exceed-ing domestic production, world market prices have risen sharply since 2008.

According to recent estimates by the UN Interagency Assessment Mission, the current requirement for wheat in Pakistan is higher than its production. The results of this study indicate that if population grows at an assumed 1.82 per cent per year, the country will remain a net importer of wheat.

Indirect demand of cereals refers to the use of cereals for seed, feed, other industrial requirements, and wastage. Total demand of wheat or rice is the sum of food demand and demand for other uses. Several estimates of the other uses are available. First, the government of Pakistan estimates that 10 per cent of wheat produced and 6 per cent of rice are used as feed, seed, industrial use, and wastage. Second, the food balance sheet of the FAO presents a comprehensive picture of the pattern of a country's food supply during a specified reference period. The total quantity of food produced in a country is added to the total quantity imported and then adjusted for any change in stocks that may have occurred since the beginning of the reference period. The result gives the supply of that food available during the specified period. On the utilization side, a distinction is made between the quantities exported, fed to livestock, used for seed, lost during storage and transportation, and available for human consumption.

The Agricultural Statistics of Pakistan reports data on the total availability of different food products. These data do not disaggregate the use by food and other uses. However, they do indicate that 10 per cent of wheat production and 6 per cent of rice production are utilized as feed, seed, and other uses. The data also indicate that this use has been growing at an annual rate of 3 per cent during the last five years. However, the higher demand of these cereals as seed and feed implies an annual growth rate of 5 per cent for both cereals when projecting future demand.

The results of the production function supply model by the UN agency show that in the future, the demand for wheat will remain higher than supply under all scenarios. In addition, the country will face the problem of wheat deficit. Rice is expected to remain in surplus. The magnitude of the wheat deficit shows an increase over time under all scenarios. The demand and supply projections are based on several assumptions, including constant growth in population, no change in taste and preferences, constant prices, and constant technology of production. Any change in these parameters can change the projections for demand as well as for supply.

There is a need for further research to know the direction of change, which suggests that Pakistan cannot simply rely on using more inputs to increase production. If the deficit of wheat is to be reduced, technology will have to improve, and crop output will need to be more efficient. If population continues to grow at an average rate of 2.42 per cent per year, the demand of wheat will remain higher than its supply, and the country will suffer from deficit. To make Pakistan a wheat surplus country, there is a need not only to increase wheat production but also to reduce the population growth rate.

The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that from 2008 to 2030, the demand for wheat will increase from 19 million tons to 30 million tons.
Projection estimates of wheat supply based on the production function technique show that by 2030, wheat output will reach 28 million tons, and rice output will be 11 million tons. These results indicate that if production technology remains the same, the growth in production will be slower; the deficit of wheat will be much larger than it is today. All scenarios show that the demand for wheat is expected to be greater than its supply. However, in the case of rice, all years show higher production than consumption.
For wheat, Pakistan may have to import large quantities to bridge the gap between demand and supply. A projected increasing surplus of rice will allow for greater local consumption or more export, which would lead to higher foreign exchange earnings

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The Asian Development Bank’s contention that agricultural produce can be doubled through agrarian reforms is beyond all dispute. The bank rightly called for developing the irrigation system, at the same time underscoring the need for having more water reservoirs.

Being the world’s sixth largest populous country, the need for having a ready and reliable supply of food is obvious, which necessitates that agriculture is reformed thoroughly. Many rural areas with tracts of arable land collectively represent a picture of a wilderness; they have been largely suffering a dire shortage of water. Other problems faced by the farmer include exploitation by the middleman, the mills where payments for harvest are rarely made on time, and the rising prices of inputs like diesel and fertilizer. Then there are other structural problems like lack of modern equipment and scientific farming methods. What is, however, most urgent and which the ADP has also pointed attention to is to ensure availability of water especially during the season when the crops’ survival depend on timely supply of water. This is possible only if there are large dams. With no new dam constructed during the past many decades, eminent scientists sound alarm bells that we are on the verge of becoming a water scare country. It if for this reason that multi-purpose Kalabagh dam should now be built.

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Wheat procurement in the Punjab has been delayed by one week by the caretaker government at a time when the crop size is stated to be lower than normal, which may encourage the private sector to pick up the stocks.

Our planners never know the actual size of any crop. Their estimates are many times contradicted by a larger or much lower quantity than their projections. Wheat is an important food commodity for the people of Pakistan. They can tolerate gas, power, sugar and vegetable shortages, but any hint of wheat shortage creates panic and always results in riots. It happened in 1997, and then again in 2008.

Each time the fault was in government planning. In 1997, there was imminent shortage of wheat that could have easily been arranged from the international market. The caretaker government of that time ignored the issue that resulted in mobs looting the wheat and flour trucks on the roads.

In 2007, it was other way round. We had sufficient buffer stocks from the 2006 harvest. The then government estimated that there would be a bumper wheat crop. It allowed free export of wheat which was short in the international market. The crop size unfortunately was very small and soon after its harvest the private sector pounced in and offered a little higher price to the farmers than the government support price.

The result was that none of the provincial governments could procure enough wheat that could ensure food safety of the country in the winter months when the private sector wheat is exhausted. Since the private sector had bought almost the entire wheat harvested in 2007, they hoarded it in large quantities. There was shortage of wheat in India, Afghanistan and Iran which made the smugglers active. The price in those countries was much higher and the hoarded wheat instead of coming to the local market was handed over to the smugglers. Many wheat and flour trucks were apprehended by authorities in the border areas of the country but many more managed to slip by.

The result was a deep wheat crisis in 2007-08. This crisis was one of the reasons that cost the PML-Q most of the seats in the urban areas and some in rural regions. The city dwellers accused the government of protecting the wheat hoarders as they were known political figures. The small farmers felt frustrated as they parted with their crop at half the price at which it was sold in the open market a few months after harvest.

The surge of world market grain prices in spring 2008, resulted in an extensive debate about the foundations of international agricultural commodity markets and factors that truly triggered such a dramatic surge.

Even though different stakeholders and research groups weight the factors underlying the dramatic price spike differently, there is a wide consensus that the low buffers against adverse demand and supply shocks, such as the end-of-season inventories, have likely been among the most critical and decisive factors that triggered the crisis. There are also serious concerns that the record-low inventories in 2008, encouraged speculation that further exacerbated the price movements, since the shrinking inventories and price increases may have raised arbitrage opportunities and expectations in favour of further continuum of increasing prices. The situation became even worse when countries threatened by severe food shortages imposed new export restrictions and export bans to protect their own inventories and consumers.

Now that grain prices have decreased and are closer to the pre-crisis levels, there is additional support for the view that the market and policymakers were overreacting and that, as such, a large price surge may not have been fully justified by the market fundamentals alone. The crisis has also triggered policy actions that might result in irreversible long-term economic developments. Capital and population-rich countries are considering new means of rebuilding their stocks, increasing their self-sufficiency, and securing their consumers' access to food. Thus, the drastic price surge may also have persistent implications for the international grain market, and a better understanding of these implications requires new knowledge about the relationship between inventories, prices, and price volatility. Even if low levels of food inventories are among the core factors underlying the food crisis, we still lack recent rigorous empirical analysis on the causal relationship between the global grain inventories, international grain prices, and the volatility of these prices. This study complements the existing literature and quantitative equilibrium analyses with a statistical approach.

This year the wheat stocks at the government level are low and it will have to procure a much larger quantity of wheat from the current harvest than in last two years when the government lacked storage due to higher carry over stocks. It is essential for the caretakers to procure enough stocks that could last till the next crop.

The top priority of the caretakers is definitely to ensure free and fair elections and handover the power to the next elected government. But this does not mean that they should forget their responsibilities towards the people of Pakistan. If there is a power crisis it is their duty to address it in the best possible manner. If there is law and order problem the caretakers should take strict action and ensure peace in the country. Similarly, they are to ensure that when the next government assumes power it should have the comfort that the food security of the country is not threatened.

The fact is that the caretaker governments are in control at a time when hectic election activities are going on one side while millions of farmers are harvesting the most important food crop of the country. The wheat has to be procured now as it cannot be left to the next government. There would be no crop left in the fields when the next government assumes power. The farmer must be protected from vested interests. If the crop is good he will get much less than the support price offered by the government from the private sector. Even if the crop is normal the price offered by the private sector will be lower than government price.

The problem with the wheat farmers is that they want to dispose off their stocks immediately after harvest. They fear that if the wheat is left in the open it could be swept away by wind storm or spoiled by even a little rain. These possibilities however rare are there and farmers cannot take the risk. They dispose of the stock to the first reasonable buyer they come across.

Immediately after harvesting the wheat the farmers have to prepare for the winter crops. In the southern part of the country they rush to sow cotton, while in the central and northern areas they go for rice, sugarcane and edible oil crops. Punjab harvests over 80 per cent of the total wheat produced in the country and it maintains almost 65 per cent of the total buffer stock of the wheat. The caretaker government of the province would have to act fast and prudently to procure at least 4 million tons of wheat from this crop. The caretaker chief minister has assured that this quantity would be procured, but the way things are moving, this does not seem possible.

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Pakistan's economy has experienced structural changes and transformation over time.

The aggregate share of various commodity-producing sectors, including agriculture, mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction, electricity, and gas distribution, which was estimated to be 51.4 per cent in 1990/91, declined to 46.7 per cent in 2009/10.

The relative shares have also changed within the commodity-producing sectors. The contributions of agriculture and industry, estimated to be 25.8 and 25.7 per cent, respectively, in 1990/91, dropped to 21.5 and 25.2 per cent, respectively, by 2009/10. As a result, the economy has been transformed from an agricultural to a diversified economy. The gross domestic product (GDP) share of the livestock sub-sector during the last 10 years has averaged around 11.3 per cent; the GDP share of the crop sub-sector decreased from 13.1 per cent in 1999/2000 to 9.4 per cent in 2009/10.
According to a UN agency study the changes in relative shares of various sub-sectors of agriculture, notwithstanding the extent to which they are
prone to annual fluctuations, reflect the dynamics of the sector's structural transformation and technological change. The performance of the crop sub-sector in general and of cereals (wheat, rice, maize, and so on) in particular, have far-reaching implications for combating rural poverty and improving food security prospects in the country.

Agriculture in Pakistan - comprising the sub-sectors of crops, livestock and poultry, fisheries, and forestry - contributes 21.5 per cent to the GDP, making it the country's second-largest sector. The principal source of employment, it was responsible for 24.26 million of the 53.82 million people employed in 2010. Agriculture (and the textile value chain that it is a part of) contributes 60-65 per cent to the foreign exchange earnings from trade in merchandized goods. Agriculture provides livelihoods to 68 per cent of the rural population and supplies markets for the goods and services of other sectors with key inputs. Textiles, sugar, flour, rice, and feed mills, the manufacturing sector's main components, depend on agriculture for their raw materials. Thus, the economic health and performance of agriculture and its allied sub-sectors holds the key to overall economic development. Its performance is also crucial in combating poverty and improving the country's food security and nutrition. However, agriculture, heralded as an engine of growth during the 1960s and 1970s, has not performed consistently, especially during the last two decades. In the recent past, its performance has been erratic, making it vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change and other natural factors. Agriculture's annual growth rate is marked by wide variations, ranging from 5.2 per cent in 1992/93 to 11.72 per cent in 1995/96 (Pakistan, MOF 2010). Its recent performance has not been smooth either. Indeed, the crop sector's varying and poor performance - three years of negative growth between 2006 and 2010 - has been noted by observers. However, the agriculture sector as a whole experienced positive growth in the period 2006-10, riding on the solid performance of the poultry and livestock sub-sector.

Major cereals cultivated in Pakistan include wheat, rice, maize, millet, sorghum (jowar), and barley. The area under these cereals averaged 12.483 million hectares (ha) per year between 2006 and 2010, with production averaging 31.983 million metric tons. Wheat, rice, and maize, the most important food grains (cereals) in Pakistan, are also the staple food crops. Together, these three crops command 94 per cent of the area under cereals and make up 98 per cent of the annual production of all cereals.

Wheat is the largest crop in terms of area: It is planted over 9 million hectares each year and accounts for 69 per cent of the total production of cereals. Wheat cultivated under both irrigated and rainfed conditions is grown throughout Pakistan. In the 2008-10 period, its average annual production was 22.77 million tons. Pakistan, famous for the long-grain aromatic basmati rice that it produces and exports, is the world's fifth-largest rice exporter, after Thailand, India, Vietnam, and the United States. Hovering around 2.9 million tons, its rice exports, which also include a substantial quantity of coarse rice, account for 9 per cent of the world's exports. Annually sown over an average area of 2.79 million hectares, rice has accounted for 21 per cent of the area under food grains and its production has averaged 6.47 million tons in the recent past. The area under maize, the third most important food grain after wheat and rice in Pakistan, has expanded to more than 1 million hectares, and production has increased to reach an average of 3.49 million tons in the period 2008-10. Though maize is traditionally raised as a summer crop from indigenous seed, hybrid maize planted in the spring with yields averaging 8-9 tons per hectare has revolutionized maize production in some of the irrigated districts of the Punjab province. As a result, the share of maize in the value added by major crops has increased from 3.15 to 5.09 per cent, and its contribution to the total output of food grains has risen from 6.6 to 10.5 per cent.

The cultivation of these cereals provides raw material for wheat flour and rice milling and for the feed and starch industries. Since rice is a major export and wheat an important import, their performance has affected not only the food security situation in the country but also the course of international trade and the balance-of-trade situation. Maize cultivation is a source of raw material for several industrial products, such as corn oil, starch, corn flour, and livestock and poultry feeds. More than 50 per cent of the area under these crops is reported to be on farms operating less than 12.5 acres each.
The marketing of farm inputs and outputs has become a major problem for farmers in Pakistan. Farm input supplies are irregular, characterized by shortages and high prices at critical times. Pakistan has a long and varied history of intervening in farm input and output markets, going back decades.
Most significantly, in the wake of economic reforms launched during the 1980s, it has withdrawn from most of the commodity markets except wheat. In other commodity markets, intervention is by and large notional and without much practical involvement. The rolling back of the public sector from markets has certainly saved public funds, but the savings have come at a cost. Some of the cost, in terms of higher prices and variability stemming from the uncertain economic environment and supply, is borne by consumers, and some, in terms of lower producer prices at harvest, is borne by farmers, especially small and medium farmers, whose farms account for more than 50 per cent of the area under cereals.

The devolution of decision making in agriculture, food, livestock, and related sub-sectors to the provinces under the 18th constitutional amendment (and subsequent establishment of the federal-level Ministry of Food Security and Research with its National Food Security and Research Division) have reduced clarity in terms of the public sector's role and responsibilities in relation to agriculture. While the many challenges facing the agriculture sector continue, the ability to address these with concerted science-based interventions seems less clear at this moment.

Poor agricultural performance has serious implications for food security and foreign exchange earnings, as well as for the health of the manufacturing sector and the overall economy. Farm production, with its many forward and backward linkages in the economy, exerts a powerful influence on the prospects of on and off-farm employment, incomes, livelihoods, and well-being for the multitudes of farm households.

As the problems confronting the farm sector become more complex over time in Pakistan, the public sector's capacity to address them has nose-dived, seriously aggravating the situation. Poor performance in the crop sector, inter alia, may in many cases be attributed to the inadequacy of the support system for agriculture and its failure to develop and deliver new technologies and modern inputs. Distortion in input and output markets is also a contributor. Another important factor in this context is disconnection between research and extension agencies on one hand, and farmers and agricultural extension departments on the other.

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