AN increase in population, urbanisation, changes in income levels and lifestyle, and growing industrial requirements of agricultural raw materials call for smart farmland management.

“We not only have to feed more mouths, we have to feed them right,” says a senior official of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research. “And we have to do this amid environmental challenges taking toll on our agriculture.”

At the same time, “we must grow enough food to create surplus for exports to gradually overcome our huge food trade deficit”, he adds.

An integrated food security policy is in place now and agricultural land management is part of it. Land management itself is divided into two parts. Under the first part, efforts are being made to bring more area under cultivation, whereas under the second part arable land management is being made smart.

Proposed development of 100,000 acres (40,468 hectares) of land in the Potohar region for planting more value-added crops like grapes and olive is one good example of boosting total acreage of crops in the country.

The country needs to grow enough food to create surplus for exports in order to gradually overcome a huge food trade deficit

On the other hand, tunnel farming and other forms of farming with economised use of water are examples of smart arable land management.

Local demand for both fruits and edible oil is increasing. So, cultivating grapes, or any other fruit, on new areas is a wise move. Promoting local output of olive is even wiser, given the fact that we spend enough foreign exchange to import its oil and other by-products.

“Over the years, the ultimate purpose of growing more food on smaller areas and boosting farm output via higher yields has been partly achieved. But there is much to do,” another food ministry official says.

We grow our five major crops (wheat, rice, sugarcane, maize and cotton) on roughly 16.7 million hectares of land, according to provisional data for the fiscal year 2016-17.

If we don’t let smart arable land management work, we’ll have to allow these crops to cover a little more of arable land every year so that our production does not suffer.

But if our land management gets smarter every year, we would be producing the required amount of these crops on a similar space — roughly 17m hectares. The required growth in output will keep coming via higher per-hectare yields.

“In that case, we’ll have enough space available for minor crops or minor and more value-added crops,” speculates a young scientist associated with the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Among minor crops, we grow chickpeas, pulses, vegetables and oilseeds. More than $1 billion is spent every year on imports of pulses and oilseeds.

In 2016-17, the import of pulses and leguminous vegetables consumed $952m, according to provisional data of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. The figure stood at $595m a year ago.

“Growing pulses sufficient to our needs isn’t possible, at least in a decade or so, just by experimenting with better varieties or by improving yields with better farming. We badly need to increase the area under cultivation of pulses,” says an official of the food ministry.

In Punjab, a grow-more-pulses initiative is in progress. But the programme is focused on boosting productivity without bringing additional area under cultivation.

“Growing pulses alongside major crops is one big possibility. And I know it is being practised in some areas of Sindh,” says a former chairman of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture.

Agriculturists point out that after the super floods of July-September 2010, a sizable area of farmland could not be recovered fully. This, along with some other factors (such as farmers switching to livestock breeding), led to a gradual squeeze in the total cropped area in subsequent years.

Official stats show that Pakistan’s total cropped area stood at a little over 24m hectares in 2008-09, but then it gradually shrank to 22.6m hectares in 2012-13. However, it has since shown a marginal recovery.

Though recent data is not available, officials and agriculturists say the area under cultivation should be somewhere between 23 and 24m hectares at present.

One particular trend that set in following the 2010 super floods is the shrinkage in the current fallow (or the area that remained vacant in a particular year but was cropped at least once in the previous year.

In 2008-09, the current fallow (which forms part of the total cropped area stats) was 7.04m hectares across Pakistan, but it declined to 6.69m hectares in 2013-14.

“I am sure the current fallow must have risen somewhat by now, but a decline in it shows that farmers are switching over from crop growing to something else,” says an agriculturist-cum-politician from Sindh. “Achieving a sustainable rise in the crops’ output without ensuring at least a moderate yearly increase in the current fallow is out of question.”

One can hope that this and similar issues of arable land management can now be addressed more efficiently with policymakers’ focused on maintaining growth momentum in the agriculture sector, with financial and technical assistance from China, which is keen on modernising Pakistan’s agriculture as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 5th, 2017