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| Just two pc control 45 pc agri-land in Pakistan | | | Karachi, Mar 15
Feudalism continues to prevail in Pakistan even after 60 years of its separation from India, as two per cent of the households in the country control more than 45 per cent of the agricultural land area.
The influential feudal lords have also captured the subsidies in water and agriculture, as well as the benefits of agricultural growth. This has been disclosed in World Bank report on agriculture sector in South Asia, reported The Nation.
According to the paper, agriculture credit schemes have also mostly benefited large farmers who have capitalised the implicit subsidies through higher land prices and cheaper access to mechanization rather than labor, said the bank.
More than two-thirds of Pakistanis live in rural areas, of which about 68 per cent are employed in agriculture (40 per cent of total labour force). The agriculture sector accounts for about 22 per cent of the national GDP and has enjoyed steady growth for almost three decades, substantially contributing to poverty reduction during the 1970s and 80s.
Recent trends of agriculture incomes are far less encouraging and rural poverty was back to 38.9 per cent by 2002, the same level where it was at the beginning of the 1990s. This has occurred despite generally favourable policies on prices and markets, and a relatively liberalised environment.
While consecutive droughts have certainly played a detrimental role in the performance of the sector, it also faces significant structural constraints that hinder the sector's contribution to economic growth and poverty reduction.
The World Bank report said that more than 60 per cent of the poor rural households are not farm households, with no access to land or water while 38 percent of small landowning farmers are also poor. Incomes from non-farm activities, including agricultural products processing, trade, construction, and transport services already account for 63 per cent of total rural incomes, it added.
The capacity of the agriculture research and development (R and D) system has declined sharply during the last decade, and both the adoption of Green Revolution technologies and the extension of irrigation have reached saturation levels, said the report.
It pointed out that irrigation was the single most critical component of water management in the country.
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