The federal government recently unveiled the country’s economic performance for the first quarter (July–September) of fiscal year 2024-25. Sadly, the agriculture sector failed to sustain last year’s momentum, registering a mere 1.15 per cent growth, far lower than the 8.09pc achieved during the same period last year. The disappointing performance is primarily due to a sharp contraction in the crop subsector, which exhibited a negative growth rate of 5.93pc compared to a positive 16.11pc in Q1FY24.

Pakistan’s agriculture sector, according to experts and economists, has been operating on autopilot, a trajectory completely lacking course correction through comprehensive planning, coherent policies, and strategic direction. The Q1 performance unequivocally validates their concerns.

Over the last 10 years, Pakistan’s agriculture sector has achieved an average annual growth rate of just 2.94pc, marginally exceeding the country’s population growth rate of 2.55pc. If we exclude the impressive yet anomalous 6.25pc growth recorded last year, the remaining nine-year average falls to a mere 2.57pc.

The poor performance of the agriculture sector (livestock, crops, forestry, fisheries) stems primarily from the erratic performance of the crop sub-sector, which exhibits sharp positive and negative fluctuations in growth. Such high variability, particularly the most recent one, can be attributed to three key factors.

Lack of well-defined government policies and false past promises are leading........

© Dawn Business