Agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan. Agriculture is seriously contributing towards the economy of Pakistan. Contributing by agriculture in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is 25%.
Population of rural areas in Pakistan is 70% and income of these areas is completely dependent on agriculture. From agriculture foreign exchange of Pakistan is approximately 80% and 60% share of Punjab in it. Pakistan is an agriculture country and facing most serious issues regarding agriculture.
Our first need is to highlight and solve this issue in agriculture sector. Government attention is required to elevate agriculture in Pakistan. Agriculture is affected by many factors and government must have to take to overcome these problems and up lift the agriculture sector in Pakistan.
Water is biggest blessing of Allah almighty not only for humans but also for the crop production. Few decades ago Pakistan was water surplus country but now moving towards the water scarcity. As population of Pakistan increases day by day and decreasing the availability of water per capita.
In Pakistan water shortage is a becoming big issue, If not minimized it will heavily affect agriculture in Pakistan to avoid this government have to construct dams. This step will maximize the storage capacity of water and to reduce the salinity because tube well water is the cause of salinity through this step wells water is less applied to the field.
Another issue in agriculture of Pakistan is Absence of land reforms. Land reform is defined as the division of agricultural lands by changing of law and regulations and its reallocation of those lands to landless people.
Basically Landlord enjoy these subsidies (financial assistance) given by the Pakistan government and due to absence of land reform farmer which having less area of land bear it in the end. Due to less of land reforms it brings negative changes in the society and resulting in increase in poverty.
The government should take initiates for the implement and the justice based on land reforms, because this is the key to reduce the poverty and authorization to poor farmers. Major agriculture land is owned by feudals so it is difficult to manage and last is ignored and not in use.
Revoke Feudalism and lands should be given to poor farmers. Hence this step increase agricultural production and use of land. The attention is needed by the government to fight against feudal system which is all over in the country.
Another problem is absence of quality seed or certified seed distribution across the country in agriculture sector low production due to non-certified seed.
So, Pakistani government should take steps in commercialization of certified seed and federal seed certification authority should market seed at grass root level. Infected seeds should be banned. High quarantine measures should be adopted and applied by the government and entry of diseased seed in the country should also be avoided.
Another problem in Pakistan is fertilizers prices are high due to which farmers comes in trouble and unable to fertilize his field in a optimum manner due to which productivity decreases. So government should take step to reduce the prices of fertilizers.
Agriculture sector are heavily affected by Smuggling of agricultural products. Government should control the smuggling of agricultural products by Execution of strict laws and regulations and intrusion of border forces should help to control smuggling product of agriculture.
Now common problem in Pakistan is Deforestation and agriculture sector suffers from it a lot due to green house gases. Deforestation is process of destroying forest to create open land. Implementing of strict laws and regulations should be taken by government to reduce deforestation.
New Cropping system should be introduced on Different ecological zones. Recently government has declared, Layyah as citrus zone and Potohar as olive zone on the basis of suitability of environment to the crop this will increase overall productivity per unit area.
Now a days prevailing across the country is out break Disease poultry bird. Most lethal diseases are bird flu and new castle poultry disease, availability of Poultry vaccines and other medicines should be ensured by government. Most of the farmers are uninformed and unconscious of the problems which are destroying agriculture.
For example due to old irrigation system water wastage such as flood irrigation and other old conventional method of sowing or harvesting. Problem of Soil erosion is occur due to unawareness because farmer is now cultivating fields for profit after the harvesting of crops to improve the soil fertility no practice is done and after the harvesting of first crop next crop is cultivated soon due to this the soil fertility is decreasing day by day.
So government should establish agriculture training institutes for the farmers to uplifting agriculture in Pakistan. Through these training institutes awareness should given to farmer about the modern technologies used in agriculture and important practices which should be done to improve his farm efficiency.
We all are Pakistani and we know the importance of agriculture sector in Pakistan and we have to stop destroying our resources. We can solve the Agriculture Problems by adopting the above mentioned strategies.
Authors: Dr. Mubashar Nadeem, Muhammad Adnan, Mubashir Hussain , Akash Munawar and Hassan Noorani
Department of agronomy, college of agriculture, university of Sargodha