Turtle’s pace: No growth in agriculture – literally

Barring cotton and rice, growth in important crops remains weak

KARACHI:

Agriculture sector, which accounts for 20.9% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has posted a growth of 2.9% in the outgoing fiscal year 2015 compared to 2.7% in the previous year, Economic Survey of Pakistan 2015 revealed.

The growth in crops declined from 3.2% to 1%. Important crops that carry great significance with a share of 25.6% in agricultural value experienced a meagre growth of 0.3% in fiscal year 2015 against a solid growth of 8% during the same period of last year.

The important crops performance remained weak as only cotton and rice production recorded a positive growth of 9.5% and 3%, respectively, while sugarcane, maize and wheat production recorded a negative growth of 7.1%, 5% and 1.9%, respectively, with respect to last-year’s estimates.

The agriculture’s crop subsector component, which includes other crops, showed a growth of 1.1% compared to a negative growth of 5.4%.

Cotton ginning showed a strong growth of 7.4% compared to a negative growth of 1.3%.

The livestock sector that contributes 56.3% in agriculture recorded a positive growth of 4.1% in 2015 against 2.8% growth during the same period last year.

The fishing sector contributed 2.1% in agriculture value addition recorded a growth of 5.8% as against last year’s growth of 1%. The forestry sector posted a growth of 3.2% this year as compared to the negative growth of 6.7%  last year.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th,  2015.

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