Waqar Ahmad Journalist Profile

Articles

Agriculture: The rural labour market crisis

6 days 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.
Agriculture: From export failure to import fix

1 week 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.
Agriculture: The agriculture sector’s hidden crisis

2 weeks 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.
Pakistan’s wheat crisis has deepened in 2025 due to govt policy failures at multiple levels

1 month 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.
Agriculture: Crop sector - from boom to bust

1 month 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.
Reviving a dwindling cotton crop

2 months ago | dawn.com | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad

Just recently, the prime minister constituted a 15-member committee tasked with formulating policy and administrative measures to revive cotton production in the country. Once a net exporter, Pakistan touched a production peak of 13.96 million bales in 2014-15. Since then, however, output has experienced a dramatic downturn, plummeting to just 5.5m bales in 2024-25 — 50 per cent below target and 34pc lower than last year’s yields.
Farm food safety — tackling the root

Feb 23, 2025 | dawn.com | Waqar Ahmad |Khalid Wattoo |Zohaib Majeed

In recent years, Pakistan has been grappling with twin challenges: ensuring an adequate food supply to meet the dietary needs of a rapidly growing population (food security) and safeguarding public health by mitigating hazards during food production, processing, and storage (food safety). Pakistan is severely impacted by its ineffective food control system. One in five people has a foodborne illness — twice the global average.
Wheat — an end to federal crutches

Feb 16, 2025 | dawn.com | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad

In the wheat sector, the government has decided to take two major policy shifts: abolishing the decades-long practice of setting a support price and discontinuing direct procurement from farmers. These policy measures mark a shift towards deregulating the wheat market, a longstanding demand of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international lenders.
Reimagining rural growth

Feb 2, 2025 | dawn.com | Khalid Wattoo |Waqar Ahmad

Pakistan’s economic and business landscape presents formidable challenges. The manufacturing sector, including large-scale industries and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), is struggling under the burden of high energy costs and excessive taxation. Meanwhile, the service sector is constrained by low per capita income and inadequate household disposable income.
Agriculture: Circular bioeconomy - turning waste into wealth

Jan 26, 2025 | dawn.com | Waqar Ahmad |Khalid Wattoo |Abbas Nasir

The circular bioeconomy, with its rapidly growing global significance, offers immense opportunities for agricultural countries like Pakistan. It revolves around transforming agricultural waste, by-products, and co-products into food, bioenergy, and other materials through recycling, reusing, and repurposing. It reduces the reliance on virgin resources, particularly fossil fuels and petrochemical materials, and also decreases waste disposal into the environment.