Pakistan: Agriculture Victim of Catastrophes

Agriculture sector growth of 4.4% in FY22 was not only more than 3.5% seen in FY21, it also surpassed the targeted growth of 3.5%. This was largely due to a considerable increase in the output of important crops and the growth in livestock sector.

Within the crop sector, production of important crops increased by 7.2%. Sugarcane, rice and maize exceeded their targets; whereas, wheat fell short of meeting its target by 2.6 million tons. Cotton, despite higher production than FY21, missed its target by 2.2 million bales.

Fertilizer offtake also remained lower than last year, especially in the Rabi season, when the global prices surged significantly and domestic gas shortages emerged in the winter season.

 Despite this performance, the country had to import food products worth US$9.0 billion, while exports amounted to US$5.4 billion during FY22 – causing a deficit of US$3.6 billion in net food exports.

As the world grapples with rising global temperature, changing rainfall patterns and extreme weather events, the spillover of climate change to food security in regions such as Pakistan is becoming a source of concern for various reasons. The challenges to food security will intensify under climate change from floods, low productivity, poor infrastructure, among other factors.

Pakistan is the 8th most affected country by climate change due to rising global temperatures – losing around 0.5% of GDP in 173 climate-related catastrophes from 2000-2019.

In the worst-case scenario, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) estimates average annual losses in Pakistan can be more than 9% of GDP, which would be the highest in South-Asia.

Increasing temperatures will significantly increase the risks to Pakistan’s food security since 77.5% of the agricultural production takes place in arid regions where temperatures are likely to increase more than in other climatic zones.

There are multiple channels through which food security will come under stress in Pakistan: 1) little room to expand area under cultivation (in particular for wheat) in the short to medium term under the prevailing technological constraints, 2) availability of water in the Rabi season acting as a constraint in the canal-irrigated areas of Pakistan, 3) land degradation due to imbalanced used of fertilizer and also waterlogging, 4) despite improving wheat yield in Pakistan over the years, climate change is likely to slow down the progress in the future – for instance global wheat yields are likely to drop by 17% globally due to changing weather patterns, 5) incessant population growth rate is posing resource availability challenges and 6 Increased threat of locusts, especially in the rice-wheat farm systems.