The country is likely to miss agriculture growth target of 3.5 percent set for the current fiscal year 2019-20, after missing sowing targets of major crops including cotton, sugarcane and wheat, official sources revealed to Business Recorder.
Given this background the government's optimism about meeting agriculture output targets is baffling. In the first review of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Pakistan authorities claimed that there are some encouraging signs in several sectors benefiting from its policies including a recovery in agricultural output.
An official of Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS&R) stated that sowing targets of major crops were missed due to water shortage, reduction in area, climatic impact and rising cost of production, which would impact on overall growth projections.
Cotton crop has a share of 0.8 percent in GDP and contributes 4.5 percent in agriculture value addition. However, the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) has already revised cotton production target downward for the second time in the current season (2019-20) by around 37 percent and set it at 9.45 million bales against the initial target of 15 million bales.
Talking to Business Recorder Cotton Commissioner Dr Khalid Abdullah said that missing the sowing target, pests' attacks as well as weather has led to revising the production target downward.
The country has missed cotton sowing target by over 6 percent. Cotton was sown on 2.658 million hectares against the target of 2.785 million hectares. Sources said that due to increased sugarcane cultivation in cotton areas, delay in harvest of wheat and shortage of water, a decline in cotton sowing was witnessed.
The government had fixed the cotton area and production target for the year 2019-20, according to which Punjab was expected to cover 2.145 million hectares and produce 10.2 million cotton bales, Sindh had to cover 0.64 million hectares and produce 4.6 million cotton bales, Balochistan had to cover 0.1 million hectares and produce 0.2 million bales and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been targeted to sow cotton on 0.01 million acres and produce 0.0002 million bales of cotton.
Sindh reported a drop of 30 percent in the expected cotton crop while Punjab reported a drop of 15 percent over last year's production. This shortfall of 37 percent in cotton production translates to a drop in GDP as well as the requirement of importing at least 5 million bales thereby increasing the import bill very substantially, said the official.
Sugarcane production accounts for 2.9 percent in agriculture's value addition and 0.5 percent in overall GDP. However, officials revealed that sugarcane production in the year 2019-20 decreased to 64.77 million tons from 67.17 million tons the year before showing a decrease of 3.8 percent.
The reason behind the decrease in production and area of sugarcane in 2019-20 is attributable to an increase in area and production of rice and maize, said the official, adding that the rice crop this year was cultivated on an area of 3.036 million hectares which is 8.05 percent more than last year's area of 2.81 million hectares, with output at 77 million tons, showing an increase of 6.93 percent over last year's output of 72 million tons.
Wheat is the leading food grain of Pakistan occupying the largest area under a single crop. Wheat accounts for 8.9 percent of the value addition in agriculture and 1.6 percent of GDP in Pakistan.
The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) had fixed wheat crop production at 27.03 million tons from an area of 9.2 million hectares during Rabi 2019-20. The official said that as per provincial governments' reports sowing of 90 percent wheat crop for the year 2019-20 is completed. The delay in sowing of remaining 10 percent of the crop is due to delay in sugarcane crushing by the sugar mills, he added.
Official said that during 2019-20 maize was cultivated on 1.386 million hectares with annual production of 6.93 million tons, reflecting an increase of 1.53 percent in production.
According to senior official of MNFS&R, the current weather system would have positive impact on all major Rabi crops, including wheat and gram. "Currently wheat crop in the country is in a vegetative stage and requires moisture and cold weather, therefore the current weather system will have a positive impact on the wheat crop," he said.
The official said that the FCA had fixed production targets of gram at 603 thousands tons from an area of 1012 thousands hectares, lentil 10.7 thousands tons from an area of 18.3 thousands hectares, Potato 4816 thousands tons from an area of 196 thousands hectares, onion 2192 thousands tons from an area of 155 thousands hectares and tomatoes for Rabi only 545 thousands tons from an area of 45.6 thousands hectares.
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