Pakistan’s Agriculture sector sees highest growth in 13 years

ISLAMABAD: The agriculture sector of Pakistan witnessed strong continuity in performance with growth of 3.81 percent prompted by attractive output prices and supportive government policies during the outgoing fiscal year.

The availability of better and certified seeds, pesticides, agriculture credit and intensive fertilizer played a key role in the expansion of the sector.

Finance Adviser to the Prime Minister, Miftah Ismail has said that the growth in agriculture sector is the highest in the past 13 years.

According to the Economic Survey, the growth rate exceeded the target of 3.5pc for 2017-18, and also last year’s growth of 2.07pc.

The crops sector performed well with a growth rate of 3.83pc against the last year’s growth of 0.91pc.

The growth in sub-sectors, important crops, other crops and cotton ginning registered a significant growth of 3.57pc, 3.33pc and 8.72pc, respectively, against last year’s growth of 2.18pc, negative 2.26pc and 5.58pc respectively.

Some major crops surpassed their production targets. Crops like sugarcane and rice saw an increase of growth by 7.45pc and 8.65pc, while cotton crop to exceed last year’s production level by recording growth of 11.85pc during 2017-18.

According to the survey wheat and maize crop production witnessed the decline of 4.43pc and 7.04pc respectively.

Other crops such as fodder, vegetables and fruits which have a share of 10.80pc in agriculture value-addition and 2.04pc in GDP, saw an increase by 3.33pc in the production.