Pakistan’s self-inflicted agricultural decay | The Express Tribune

The “First cause” of agricultural ailment is embedded in a feudal ecosystem defined by unviable subsistence farming on millions of fragmented, land-crippled micro farms, covering 71.5% of the country’s cropped area. This system yields diminishing returns, and agricultural growth policies have consistently failed – and will continue to fail – as undeniably evident from the last quarter-century agricultural record.

Agriculture growth (FY00 to FY25) remained a meager 2.63% with real GDP rising from Rs5.018 trillion to Rs9.603 trillion, barely keeping pace with population growth (2.32%). Consequently, per capita agricultural GDP inched up just 0.29% (Rs37k to Rs40k), showing no change in rural poverty-ridden lives. While livestock (+3.81%) outperformed all others, forestry (+0.16%) and fishing (+1.17%) lagged. Crops grew (+1.18%) less than half the population growth, leaving the country in persistent food scarcity for 25 years and counting (ACGR, Annual National Accounts 24/25).

Why this prolonged stagnation? The answer lies in unviable landholding that traces back to the British Raj. Unlike the Mughals, they engineered a loyal landed-feudal class and cemented it into a Feudal-Military-Bureaucratic alliance (PakRaj nexus). They blocked Jinnah’s land reforms and, after his death in 1948, captured the country’s trajectory, entrenching rural dependency and poverty – an irony that still wins them votes, translating into legislative power to control state institutions in an unbroken cycle.

Successive governments, seeking feudal patronage, abandoned land reforms after 1977. Instead, they peddle “Kisan-friendly” rhetoric, and blame poor crop’s performance on common constraints: lack of crop rotation and quality inputs, high costs, water inefficiency, soil degradation, pest attack, climate change, amongst others. This recycled narrative diverts attention from the root cause – crippled farm sizes due to skewed landholdings; a sea of smallholders, a handful of large operators and a stagnant thin middle layer, participating in unproductive land use.

Out of 82.771 million acres cropped across 11.7 million farms in FY25: subsistence/small farms (<12.5 acres) account for 11.3 million farms (71.5% of total cropped area), half smaller than 2.5 acres, many micro-plots of just 1.75 acres – cultivating for survival and trapped in perpetual poverty. Feudal mega-farms (>100 acres) number only 19,890, averaging 200+ acres, focused on cash crops not on national food crops. So, 96.6% of Pakistan’s farms operate on 71.5% of cropped area, while 0.17% of farms control nearly 4.84% of it (Digital Census 2024). Land inequality, perpetuated by PakRaj since 1948, manifests in skewed crop selection and market distortion.

FY24/25’s agricultural performance was poor: Real Agri-GDP grew barely 0.56% YoY, and its subsector “Main Crops” declined (-6.81%), “Important Crops” plunged (-13.50%), and “Cotton ginning” collapsed (-19.03%).

Wheat distortion: Production fell to 28.98 MMT (–8.9% YoY), leaving a deficit of 1.92 MMT. Yet, the government imported 3.6 MMT earlier, costing $1.07 billion in forex, causing oversupply, price crashes for local farmers, and additional storage and subsidy costs (Audit 2024/25) – patronage without accountability.

Maize quietness: Production rose to 8.24 MMT (+15.4% YoY) versus demand of 6.5 MMT, leaving a surplus of 1.74 MMT driven by high feed demand in the livestock sector.

Rice quandary: Production declined to 9.72 MMT (–1.4% YoY) despite crop area increase (+7.2% YoY) vs demand 4.12 MMT. Surplus exported, which was subsidised, draining resources in a drought-prone country, and diverting state support from staple crops. Pakistan ranks 109 out of 127 on the 2024 Global Hunger Index, its population unnourished. Yet, TDAP recently promoted a “Rice Road Show” with the theme “Pakistan Rice: Powering West Africa’s Food Security”, helping and enriching Feudal/large exporters while risking domestic food security. No one asks?

Sugarcane manipulation: Production was 84.24 MMT (–3.88% YoY) despite area increasing 1.1% YoY, with estimated sugar output at 5.77 MMT plus stock of 0.766 MMT – a total of 6.47 MMT vs demand of 7.1 MMT, leaving a 0.63 MMT gap. Despite this, 0.204 MMT was exported and 0.30 MMT imported by Feb’25, yet further imports were needed – why?

Cotton collapse: Output plunged to 7.08 MMT bales (–30.7% YoY), leaving a 3.7 MMT bale deficit. The government’s “solution”? An 18.5% GST on imports to encourage local production – despite imported cotton already costing $368/ton vs $332/ton local – hurting exports and livelihoods. Punishing industry?

Agriculture forex myth: Agriculture is touted as a forex earner, exposed by export-import tally; exports of $3.462 billion (rice: $3.36 billion; sugar: $102 million) versus imports of $5.46 billion (sugar: $150 million; cotton: $4.24 billion; wheat: $1.07 billion), FY25 estimated $2.79 billion agri imports ($2.620 billion FY24) and further sugar imports $63 million comes to $8.32 billion – net forex drain – $4.86 billion. Who is doing the math?

Subsidies obscurity: Federal (Rs61.514 billion) and provincial (Rs174.9 billion) subsidies overlap and their transfers fragmented, politicised, prone to leakages, above all devoid of matching rupee subsidy-to-crop output. Globally proven modern policy tools such as Production Linked Subsidies allows productivity and transparency in use of subsidies, which can be with digitally traced. But, the current policymaking will likely to keep the status quo.

In essence, Pakistan’s agricultural model is structurally unviable and perpetually stressed. Micro-farms proliferate, and are the backbone of 70–86% of national food supply (wheat: 75%; grains: 70–86%) but remain underserved and vulnerable (their fragility will surface again once flood waters recede, taking with them crops, livestock and livelihood) – the unchanging single most direct threat to food security. Mega-farms, in contrast, contribute just 3% of wheat and 7% of grains, focusing instead on hyper profitable crops.

For a quarter century, this feudal ecosystem has kept recycling failed policies, growing crops at half the population rate – an undeniable decay. Efforts treated constraints (less problematic for mega/large farms), not the “First cause” of unoptimised farm size. There is urgent need to craft strategy for food security – commercial farming for untaxed profit is not the solution.

A way forward exists: Globally proven models like contract farming, collectives and land swaps (keeping ownership intact) exist and can be adapted. Ironically, PakRaj kept ignoring Jinnah’s advice since 1948 and will continue to do so. The choices have now reduced to a stark binary: course correction or divine reckoning.