Pakistan has a total area of approximately 803,940 square kilometers out of which only 40% is deemed suitable for agriculture crop growth. The rest of the 48 million hectares that have been classified as unsuitable are a collection of mostly deserts, mountain slopes and urban settlements, like cities and towns.
This is a matter of concern for Pakistan because the occupation of growing agriculture crops is the primary interest of Pakistanis. As a result, most of the Pakistani authorities include the mountain slopes along with the urban settlements in their division of useable land on the premise that they might be used for cattle grazing.
But things are definitely looking better for Pakistan. There has been a growth of 50% in the amount of agriculture crop area in the period of time after independence. A primary reason for this is the recent availability of agricultural irrigation.
This has helped in making a larger field space fit for farming. Quite a substantial amount of land has been lost to urbanization but the incorporation of new land due to better modes of irrigation has definitely made up for it.
The population of Pakistan is roughly 165 million which is contained in an area which is slightly smaller than twice the size of the state of California. Being a grain producing country, the plains have high density of population. There are a host of countries which border its boundaries.
India, China, Afghanistan and the like are included in this list. As with most of the Asian nations, agriculture is the primary source of income out here. Pakistan’s agricultural economics emphasizes that the single biggest sector of GDP is agriculture.
Almost half of the total labor force in the entire of Pakistan is employed with the agriculture sector and draws almost 22% of its GDP from the same. The rural areas of Pakistan account for approximately 67% of the entire population and are dependent on the agricultural sector for their livelihood.
Urbanization is on a rise. This dependence may be in a direct or indirect form. Agricultural economics is heavily determined by Pakistan’s methods of farming as these products are the main source of foreign exchange earnings for itself.
There has been a decline in the size of the farm that landowners have owned till date. In the 1970s, the average size of the land used to be 13 acres while this has dwindled down to 7.7 acres in the present day.
The primary occupation and source of GDP for Pakistan is agriculture. There is a total land of 79.6 million hectares out of which, approximate 22 million hectares are devoted to the purpose of farming.
Beyond that, only 18 million hectares are irrigated which give rise to the problem of proper yields. As a result, the Pakistani authorities are always in the process of finding out novel methods of producing agriculture fertilizers. The uses of farm inputs, until now, are highly insufficient. Low yields are obtained.
Fertilizers are very important for improving the productivity of a land. There are essential nutrients which can be extracted by the use of the same. The widespread use of agriculture fertilizers in Pakistan is slowly gaining momentum as people have realized the advantages of doing farming in an intelligent manner.
Fertilizers were first introduced in Pakistan in 1950. The use of the agriculture fertilizers has gone up very fast as is evident from the fact that the use was 5kg/ha in 1966-67 while in 2003-04 it went up to 133kg/ha. But this needs to be further improved because the use per hectare is still very low as compared to other nations.