Islamabad, July 6, 2025 – Good news for Pakistan’s economy: the agriculture sector is making a strong comeback! According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025, the country’s agriculture share in GDP has jumped from 21.9% in 2019–20 to an impressive 24.03% in 2023–24. This rise highlights how agriculture is not just surviving—it’s thriving and playing a bigger role in national economic growth.
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Bangladesh beats Pakistan, India in cotton yield
In a striking revelation from the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025, Bangladesh has outperformed both Pakistan and India in cotton yield—despite growing the crop on a significantly smaller area.
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Agriculture sector share rises to 23.54% of GDP in FY25
Islamabad, June 9, 2025 – The Economic Survey of Pakistan 2024-25 has reported that the agriculture sector contributed 23.54% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), reflecting its continued structural significance.
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Aurangzeb Urges Banks to Allocate Funds for Agriculture and IT
Karachi, July 30, 2024 – Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Muhammad Aurangzeb, on Tuesday, emphasized the importance of proper fund allocation for the agriculture sector and the IT industry, especially freelancers.
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SME Farmers Advocate for Export of Khashkhash
Karachi, February 22, 2024 – The Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Farmers Association in Pakistan is urging the government to permit the export of Khashkhash (poppy seeds), citing its widespread use as a household item.
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FBR Reaffirms Tax Exemption for Agriculture Income under Updated Tax Laws
Karachi, September 5, 2023 – The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has affirmed that agriculture income is exempted from federal income tax laws in Pakistan.
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National Foods Embarks on “Seed to Table” Project, Marking Entry into Agriculture
Karachi; August 9, 2023 – National Foods Limited has taken a significant step into the realm of agriculture with the launch of its “Seed to Table” project.
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Agriculture surpasses FY22 growth target: Economic Survey
ISLAMABAD: The agriculture sector has surpassed the growth target of 3.5 per cent for fiscal year 2021-2022 and grew by 4.40 per cent during the fiscal year under review, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2021/2022 released on Thursday.
It said during FY22 (2021/2022), the agriculture sector recorded a remarkable growth of 4.40 percent and surpassed the target of 3.5 percent and last year’s growth of 3.48 percent.
READ MORE: Per capita income in Pakistan rises to $1,798 in 2021-22
This growth is mainly driven by high yields, attractive output prices and supportive government policies, better availability of certified seeds, pesticides, and agriculture credit.
The crops sector outperformed and posted a growth of 6.58 percent during FY22 against 5.96 percent last year. At the sub-sector level, important crops, other crops, and cotton ginning depicted a significant growth of 7.24 percent, 5.44 percent, and 9.19 percent, respectively, against last year’s growth of 5.83 percent, 8.27 percent, and -13.08 percent.
READ MORE: Pakistan achieves 5.97% GDP growth in 2021/2022: Economic Survey
The growth in production of important crops namely cotton, rice, sugarcane, and maize are estimated at 17.9 percent, 10.7 percent, 9.4 percent, and 19.0 percent, respectively.
The cotton crop increased from 7.1 million bales reported last year to 8.3 million bales during 2021-2022; rice production increased from 8.4 million tonnes to 9.3 million tonnes; sugarcane production increased from 81.0 million tonnes to 88.7 million tonnes; maize production increased from 8.9 million tonnes to 10.6 million tonnes respectively, while wheat production decreased from 27.5 million tonnes to 26.4 million tonnes.
READ MORE: Pakistan may increase normal sales tax rate to 18%
Other crops having a share of 13.86 percent in agriculture value addition and 3.14 percent in GDP, grew by 5.44 percent on the back of an increase in the production of pulses (29.82 percent), oilseeds (24.75 percent), vegetables (11.52 percent), fruits (1.53 percent) and fodders (0.36 percent).
Livestock having a share of 61.89 percent in agriculture and 14.04 percent in GDP, recorded a growth of 3.26 percent in 2021-22 compared to 2.38 percent during the same period last year.
The fishing sector having a share of 1.39 percent in agriculture value addition and 0.32 percent in GDP grew at 0.35 percent compared to a growth of 0.73 percent in the same period last year.
READ MORE: PM Shehbaz assures favorable measures on CNIC requirement
The forestry sector having a share of 2.14 percent in agriculture value addition and 0.49 percent in GDP posted a positive growth of 6.13 percent against the negative growth of 0.45 percent last year.
Water availability during Kharif 2021 was recorded at 65.1 million-acre feet (MAF) compared to 65.1 MAF of Kharif 2020. Rabi season 2021-22 stood at 27.4 MAF, showing a decrease of 12 percent over Rabi 2020-2021.
The domestic production of fertilizers during FY2022 (July-March) increased by 1.9 percent over the same period of last year. This increase in domestic production of fertilizer is mainly due to the running of two LNG-based plants, FatimaFert and Agritech Limited, from September 2021 to March 2022. Although the import of fertilizer decreased by 6.2 percent, however, the total availability of fertilizer slightly increased by 0.5 percent.
There was a decrease in the total offtake of fertilizer nutrients by 3.6 percent.
During July-March FY2022, total tractor production reached 41,871 compared to 36,900 produced last year, a 13.5 percent higher than the same period last year.
During FY2022 (July-March), banks disbursed Rs 958.3 billion which is 56.4 percent of the overall annual target and 0.5 percent higher than the disbursement of Rs 953.7 billion made during the same period last year. Further, the outstanding portfolio of agricultural loans has increased by Rs 30.9 billion i.e., from Rs 601.8 billion to Rs 632.7 billion at end of March 2022 as compared to the same period last year.
In terms of outreach, the number of outstanding borrowers reached 3.2 million in March 2022.
During FY2022 (July-March), total fish production was recorded at 696.0 thousand MT (marine: 468 thousand MT and inland: 228 thousand MT) witnessing an increase of 0.8 percent over the same period of last year’s fish production of 690.6 thousand MT (marine: 465.2 thousand MT and inland: 225.4 thousand MT).
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Pakistan, Iran discuss promoting agriculture cooperation
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Iran have engaged in extensive discussions aimed at enhancing agricultural cooperation between the two neighboring countries.
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China wants to help Pakistan in green revolution
BEIJING: China has shown willingness to share its experience to bring green revolution in Pakistan.
Pakistan is suffering from challenges of climate change, pandemic, and population growth. Smarter agriculture is the way forward for many countries including China.
“The integration of information technology and agriculture will bring about the third green revolution: agricultural digital revolution,” said Zhao Chunjiang from China’s National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture.
“By 2025, China’s digital agro economy will exceed a $100 billion”.
In the past, farmers laboured for hours in the fields. But now farm work can be done with internet systems, said a staff member of the exhibitor, Ningxia Green Pioneer (Lvxianfeng) Agricultural Mechanical Services Company, which has transformed local farming model with drones, precision hole-sowing machine, driverless harvesters and plant protecting devices, remote surveillance equipment, etc. supported by the Internet of Things, cloud technology, big data, etc.
“Spraying at a speed of 4.5 meters a second, each drone can complete what was used to be done by 25-30 workers per day, saving 80 per cent water, 30 per cent cost of plant protection, and 20 per cent-25 per cent pesticides,” company staff introduced to China Economic Net (CEN). “They can be used in rice, wheat, and maize. Take rice as an example, about $60 can be saved for each hectare.”
To better take the advantage of the efficient digital equipment that excels on vast stretches of land, the company takes a step further to push forward scale operation by bring the scattered lands together through land trusteeship, transfer, and shareholding.
A remote monitoring command service center has been set up for visible, standard, and digital farming. Soil, seedlings, pests, diseases, and disasters are monitored, early warnings are sent in case of abnormalities, and automatic solutions can be identified. From sowing, cultivating, to harvesting, the crops grow under close and accurate supervision.
“Under this whole-process land trusteeship, $230 can be saved per hectare”, revealed the company staff.
“Not all farmers trust in this new model at the beginning, but after getting to know and see what it can achieve, they started to acknowledge its benefits.”
If there is a chance, we are willing to join the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) under CPEC, company staff said.