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5 days ago | 
dawn.com | Waqar Ahmad |Khalid Wattoo
The Economic Survey of Pakistan 2024-25 reported a sharp 13.5 per cent decline in the production of major crops. While many blame climate change for this downturn, the crisis is far more complex and multifaceted — one that has jeopardised the financial viability of the agriculture sector.
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1 week ago | 
dawn.com | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad
Given Pakistan’s specific economic structure, the nature and scale of its industrial base, rural-urban population ratio, and prevailing literacy and skills levels of our workforce, it is clear beyond doubt that the country’s path to economic development and poverty reduction lies primarily through its agriculture sector. Yet, for many years, the government has pursued a piecemeal approach — short-term fixes — to the sector, lacking a holistic and long-term vision.
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2 weeks ago | 
dawn.com | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad
To expand its fiscal space for the next financial year, the government has three main options within the agriculture sector: impose new taxes on agricultural inputs, tax agricultural produce or farmers’ income, or rationalise the subsidies provided to the sector. As the annual budget approaches, media reports indicate that the government is considering revising taxes on key agricultural inputs like fertilisers, pesticides, and seeds.
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3 weeks ago | 
dawn.com | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad
In Pakistan’s rural areas, rising mechanisation in the agriculture sector has become a major driver of growing unemployment. Traditionally, in the country, mechanisation was synonymous with tractorisation — simply increasing the number of tractors. However, the current phase of agricultural mechanisation is powered by a much wider array of machines, including combine harvesters, half-feed rice harvesters, rice transplanters, corn pickers, corn planters, and vegetable harvesters.
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1 month ago | 
dawn.com | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad
A large trade deficit has remained one of Pakistan’s most persistent and deep-rooted structural economic challenges. In the past, this chronic imbalance between imports and exports has led to the accumulation of huge foreign debt and a continuous depletion of the country’s foreign exchange reserves. In FY24, the trade deficit stood at $24.09 billion and is projected to widen further in the current fiscal year.
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1 month ago | 
dawn.com | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad
Pakistan’s agriculture sector is grappling with a deepening crisis, which is likely to worsen in the coming years. The prices of agricultural commodities have been on a consistent downward slide in international markets, and so have they in local markets. Meanwhile, agricultural input prices in Pakistan continue to rise.
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1 month ago | 
dawn.com | Chaudhary Mohammad Ashraff |Khalid Wattoo
Pakistan’s agriculture sector, which consumes over 90 per cent of the country’s available water, is becoming increasingly dependent on groundwater due to multiple factors, including declining river flows, erratic rainfall, expansion of water-intensive rice and sugarcane crops, increased cropping intensity, and more recently, the widespread adoption of solar-powered tubewells that offer minimal operating costs, which encourages indiscriminate pumping of groundwater.
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2 months ago | 
asianews.network | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad
April 29, 2025ISLAMABAD – In late March 2025, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics released the country’s economic growth figures for the second quarter (October-December) of FY25. The data painted a worrying picture: the agriculture sector grew by just 1.1 per cent. The first quarter was even worse, barely registering a growth rate of 0.74pc (revised figure). That is a massive fall from FY24, when agriculture posted a robust 8.17pc and 5.82pc growth in Q1 and Q2, respectively.
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2 months ago | 
dawn.com | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad
In late March 2025, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics released the country’s economic growth figures for the second quarter (October-December) of FY25. The data painted a worrying picture: the agriculture sector grew by just 1.1 per cent. The first quarter was even worse, barely registering a growth rate of 0.74pc (revised figure). That is a massive fall from FY24, when agriculture posted a robust 8.17pc and 5.82pc growth in Q1 and Q2, respectively.
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2 months ago | 
dawn.com | Chaudhary Mohammad Ashraff |Khalid Wattoo
This wheat season has turned out even more punishing for farmers than the last. Buyers are scarce, and market prices have plunged to around Rs2,200-2,300 per maund — far below production costs and nearly half the support price announced for the two crops of 2023 and 2024. Even more concerning, Punjab’s harvest — accounting for nearly 75 per cent of national production — has yet to peak.
