OUR agriculture accounts for almost 40pc of employed labour force. Its contribution to the national economy is noticeable: 24pc of the country’s GDP come from agriculture, while it is also the largest source of foreign exchange earnings.

Currently, Pakistan’s farm yield is low due to a number of reasons. First, the cultivable land is limited, only 28pc of land is cultivable. There is a need for increasing cultivable land to meet rising food demands of the growing population.

Waterlogging and salinity make a large area of land unsuitable for cultivation; about 0.1 million acres of land are annually rendered useless by the twin problems of waterlogging and salinity. The irrigated land should be properly drained.

Second, our farming methods are outdated and inefficient. Hence the poor yield. Except for a few rich and progressive landowners, most growers use old agriculture implements instead of using modern agriculture machinery to increase their yield capacity. Rural farmers should be made aware of the benefits of mechanised agriculture.

Third, we need to improve agriculture research in order to create pest-resistant, high-yielding varieties of various crops. For this we must have enough funds.

Balochistan Agriculture College, located on the outskirts of Quetta, is the sole agriculture college in the province imparting quality education to people in the province. The college greatly suffers because of a poor budgetary allocation for research: it gets Rs0.4 million for carrying out research, while Rs0.6 million for buying books which are must for promoting research.

Given the importance of research in agriculture, the budgetary allocation for both research and books should be increased to Rs15m and Rs10m, respectively, so that college can produce competent and knowledgeable agriculture graduates and researchers who can effectively play their role in the improvement and modernisation of Balochistan’s agriculture.

Greater investment in agriculture research will lead to greater food security. For Pakistan to become a food-secure country, boosting agricultural production is a must.

Prof Lutfullah Khoso

Quetta

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2015

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