A REPORT submitted to parliament by the finance minister exposes the grim state of Pakistan’s agriculture sector. It points out that the sector, often touted as the economy’s ‘backbone’, has fallen to pieces, unleashing what many term as a broader rural crisis. The report, submitted in response to information sought by a senator on the state of farm credit, gives a detailed account of collapsing agriculture credit, crop failure, low yields and farmer migration to cities. While the situation has been compounded by extreme weather events caused by climate change and ongoing economic troubles, as stressed in the report, the crisis in the farm sector is structural. The report also seeks to exonerate the government of any blame for the current state of the rural economy by holding farmers, if partially, along with natural disasters and the economic downturn, responsible for a complex structural problem rooted in decades of state neglect.

Successive governments have failed to invest in rural extension services, encourage farm credit and crop insurance, promote mechanisation and technology adoption, or develop drought- and pest-resistant seed varieties. Each administration has responded to the recurring agriculture crises with short-term fixes, including indirect subsidies that rarely reach smallholders, instead of addressing the structural flaws. The absence of credible market reforms and long-term planning has left the farm economy stagnant, unproductive and vulnerable to both climatic and economic shocks behind which every government seeks to conceal its failures. Now that the farm productivity crisis is morphing into the larger problem of the exodus of rural populations to the cities, the authorities must move beyond their rhetoric. Pakistan needs a coherent rural development strategy that combines climate resilience with financial inclusion, technological support and market reforms to revitalise agriculture to raise rural incomes and alleviate poverty. Without a paradigm policy shift, the so-called backbone will continue to crack under the weight of state neglect.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2025