Suchergebnisse

The main objective of this paper has been to review Pakistan's
historical experience in agricultural development in terms of growth,
income distribution, and rural poverty. While the long-term growth rates
between 1949-50 and 1994-95 were satisfactory, the variations around the
average have been rather too large over the various decades. Beginning
with a stagnating sector of the 1950s, agriculture witnessed record
growth rates during the Sixties. This was followed by the lowest growth
rates of the early Seventies, and acceleration in the second half of the
Seventies. The experience since 1979-80 has been mixed, but the growth
rates have been rather low through the Eighties and the Nineties. The
trends in income distribution and poverty varied directly in relation to
the agricultural growth rates, especially when they were in excess of
the threshold level of 4.5–5.0 percent per annum. In general, a growth
rate of 5.0 percent or higher has induced positive changes in income
distribution and poverty. In view of this positive association, the
pursuit of a high growth policy in agriculture should guide Pakistan's
future development strategy. The efficiency of resource use, a greater
dependence on modern technologies, and a minimisation of government
intervention in the market mechanism are the essential pillars of the
high growth strategy.

Trends in rural employment and wages are important in a number
of ways. For example, a steady growth of job opportunities is a
precondition for productive employment of labour force under rapid
growth of population. Rising real wages of the working class would be
essential for incessant improvements ih the standard of living of the
masses. Lack of sufficient employment opportunities in rural areas
together with the consequent stagnating (even declining) wages may be a
potential cause of mass movement of rural labour to urban areas and
attendant formidable economy-wide problems. Similarly, aggregate growth
rates of employment and wages in contrast with those in productive
sectors have an important bearing on trends in income distribution and
poverty. Rapid growth of population, predominance of rural sector and a
general lack of studies on rural labour market conditions in less
developed countries, including Pakistan, call for a study such as the
present one, which explores the trends of rural employment and wages in
Pakistan. The paper carries four sections. Section 1 surveys the present
state of the rural labour market. Section 2 reports trends in rural
employment and discusses the various factors underlying those trends.
Employment situation being the basic determinant, wage trends,
especially those in agriculture, are highlighted in Section 3. Section 4
summarises the findings of the study and in their light makes some
policy recommendations.

It follows from the experience of World economies that rising
and balanced use of fertilisers is the key factor in agricultural
productivity [FAO (1995); SFS and STI (1996); Habib-ur-Rehman (1982) and
Pinstrup-Anderson (1976)]. In the case of Pakistan the stepped up
fertiliser use has been argued to be incritable to realise existing
untapped yield potential of major crops [Johnston and Kilby (1975)] and
to induce yield increasing technological change in future [John Mellor
Associates and Asianics Agro-Dev. International (1993)]. Although proper
malnutrition involves the use of primary, secondary and micro-nutrients,
Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus and Potassium (K) or NPK is generally
considered to be sufficient to harvest normal crop yields [FAO and IFA
(1999)]. Given this situation, this paper looks at various factors that
determine fertiliser use in Pakistan. Although price of fertiliser is a
critical factor in this respect [Schultz (1965) and Johnston and Cownie
(1969)], only non-price factors are considered in this paper due to
limitations of data. Apart from this introductory section, the paper
comprises of three more sections. The following Section 2 explains the
data and the empirical model. Section 3 presents the results. Section 4
summarises the main findings along with their policy
implications.

Agriculture is the backbone and single largest sector of
Pakistan's economy as its contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
exceeded 25.3 percent during 1997-98. Crops, livestock, fishing and
forestry sub-sectors being its main components, only crop and livestock
sub-sectors are of critical importance. They accounted for 59.6 and 36.2
percent of the sector's output respectively. Because of the ongoing
process of structural transformation, agriculture's share in the
national economy is shrinking. From 39 percent of GDP in 1969-70 it has
fallen to its current levels [Pakistan (1999a)]. The livestock
sub-sector however has not followed suit. It has risen from 27.3 percent
in 1969-70 to 36.2 percent in 1997-98. This trend in fact would be more
pronounced if the national accounts did not underestimate the
sub-sector's components such as farm yard manure, dung cakes for
household fuels and animal draft power.

In today's world economy, financial crises have been quite
rampant and have been a source of greater misery, deprivation and
poverty among a growing number of countries [Wolfensehn (1998)]. Some of
the major causes of this state of affairs especially in Pakistan lie in
rising debt servicing liabilities, receding donor assistance and growing
saving-investment and import-export gaps [UN (1997)]. To the extent that
the above situation can be ameliorated considerably by emphasis on
domestic production especially in agriculture, this paper looks at
possibilities of increasing the production of oil-crops for eliminating
edible oil imports. It must be noted that self-reliance in edible oil is
not important in its own right but would also be consistent with more
judicious use of domestic resources, greater food security, enhanced
welfare of consumers and producers and above all saving of scarce
foreign exchange resources [Goldman (1975) and Mellor and Johnston
(1984)]. In line with the above, the paper has the following outline.
Section 2 reviews edible oil situation in the country. The factors
underlying the growing edible oil deficit are highlighted in Section 3.
In Section 4 discussion is centred on policy alternatives for attainment
of self-sufficiency in edible oils through local production. The final
Section 5 summarises the conclusions of the paper.

The paper aims to review the growth performance of Pakistan's
agriculture from 1950 to 1995. The long-term growth rate of agriculture,
although respectable, has exhibited considerable yearly fluctuations
even between decades. The period of the fifties and early seventies
lacked any growth. Accelerating and high growth rates marked the decade
of the sixties but the performance has not been satisfactory since
1979-80 and average growth rates have barely exceeded the population
growth rate, with widespread implications for growth of national
economy, food security, and social welfare of the masses. Area, modern
inputs, and technology have been the major determinants of growth but
prices were equally important because of their incentive and
disincentive effects. The agriculture price policies adopted during the
1980s are known to have had a negative effect on the development and use
of technology in agriculture. In order to boost agricultural
productivity, a change in price policy is needed to ensure incentive
prices. This could be done by setting agricultural commodity prices at
par with corresponding import and export parity prices. A higher
investment in research and development can hardly be overemphasised.
There is an urgent need to remove the bottlenecks in agricultural input
markets since these markets represent the typical monopoly position. To
break up the monopoly of registered dealers and to promote competition,
free sales in the open market by interested parties and individuals may
be allowed.

A large majority of the less developed countries, including
Pakistan, suffer from low levels of productivity in agriculture. In view
of the scarcity of farm land and the limitations of intensive margins of
cultivation, the importance of raising these levels may not be
underestimated in terms of a more judicious use of labour force, rapid
growth of agricultural production and increased availability of funds
for industrial development. Productivity gains favouring well-to-do
farmers, however, may produce undesirable results such as deterioration
of income inequalities, political instability and social unrest, and
must be avoided as far as possible. It is in this context that the
distribution of productivity gains among various size groups should be
taken to be as important as the aggregate growth of farm productivity,
if not more.

Pakistan operates the world's largest well-articulated
irrigation system. Individual farms receive water from the gravity flow
of a massive network of canals, distributaries and watercourses fed by
the Indus River and its tributaries. In recent years public tubewells
have become an additional, though somewhat limited, source of irrigation
water. The canal system, which has been in operation for more than 100
years, is believed to have become too obsolete to cater for the needs of
modern agriculture and is, therefore, in desperate need for
rehabilitation. But resource-poor Pakistan cannot undertake the
rehabilitation work on its own, and must depend on foreign loans or at
least ensure full recovery of annual operation and maintenance (0 and M)
expenditures [Chaudhry (1985); Duane (1975) and Hotes (1984)]. Apart
from generating investment funds, the cost recovery, with higher water
charges, would also lead to greater water-use efficiency and an
equitable income distribution at the farm level [Chaudhry (1985) and
Hotes (1984»). Can this all be accomplished by simply raising water
charges? In this paper, we have attempted to answer this question. To
answer the question systematically, we have divided the paper in five
sections. The current state of Pakistan's irrigation system, water
charges and cost recovery is discussed in Section 2. Section 3 deals
with possible impact of rising water charges on cost recovery,
investments, efficiency of water use and income distribution under the
current system of water pricing. Section 4 presents policy alternatives
that would ensure an effective cost recoyery, greater water-use
efficiency and a more equitable distribution of farm income. Section 5
presents the summary and conclusions of the paper.