Topic :
Major Highlights of Agriculture Sector of Pakistan in (2019 to 2020)
Introduction:
Agriculture constitutes is the largest sector of our economy.

Majority of the population, directly or indirectly, dependent on this sector.

It contributes about 24 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and accounts for half of employed labour force and is the largest source of foreign exchange earnings.

It feeds whole rural and urban population. Realizing its importance, planners and policy makers are always keen to have reliable area and production statistics of agricultural crops well in time.

Policy makers primarily need accurate and timely statistics for the important crops such as wheat, cotton, rice, sugarcane, maize etc.

Agriculture contributes 18.5 percent to country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and provides 38.5 percent employment to national labour force.

But it remains backward sector of the economy while high performing agriculture is a key to economic growth and poverty alleviation.

Over the last decade, the performance of agriculture sector has fallen short of desirable level, mainly because of stagnant productivity of all important crops.

Cropped area of the five traditional crops has also largely remained unchanged.

Climate change also poses a serious challenge to Pakistan’s agriculture and threatens country’s water availability and food security.
The government of Imran Khan is trying its best to help the farmers by providing agriculture inputs at affordable prices and ensuring better prices of their produce.

To guarantee food security, it is necessary to enhance domestic agricultural production through increased productivity (increasing per acre yield).

Although Pakistan has rich production potential in agriculture, livestock and fisheries, yet for sustainable economic growth and prosperity, the development of these sectors on long-term basis is of fundamental importance for country’s growth and prosperity.

This calls for efficient utilization of production resources by adopting modern technologies and establishment of realistic marketing system.

The Prime Minister’s taskforce on agriculture has taken a holistic view of the issues faced by the agriculture sector and has made some sound recommendations for improving productivity of agriculture sector.

Apart from FY 2018, the growth rate of the agriculture sector is highest in the current fiscal year. Growth rate of crops increased significantly from -4.96% in FY 2018-19 to 2.98% in FY 2019-20. Production of wheat, maize and rice increased while sugarcane and cotton decreased.