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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).