Brewing crisis of shrinking farm size in Pakistan

Pakistan's agricultural crisis extends beyond water scarcity, input costs, declining productivity, and climate change to include the issue of shrinking farm sizes. The seventh Agricultural Census reveals a 34.4% increase in the number of farms from 2010 to 2024, while the average farm size has decreased by 17.2%. More alarming is the surge in fragmented farms, with the number rising by 76% and the average division of separate plots held by each fragmented farm increasing by over 133%.

The majority of farms are now under 12.5 acres, up from 89.5% in 2010. This trend poses significant challenges for individual farms, sectoral performance, and policy makers. Smaller, more dispersed holdings hinder mechanization, raise cultivation and supervision costs, limit access to credit and modern technologies, and reduce farmers' capacity to generate marketable surpluses.

Policymakers must address this issue by implementing initiatives such as shared machinery services, accessible agricultural credit, cooperative farming arrangements, and land consolidation to help smallholders overcome the disadvantages of scale and improve agricultural performance.

Brief written by urgent.news from Dawn Business's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.