Pakistan’s agriculture sector is a major economic driver, contributing just below a quarter to the nation’s GDP and employing 37 per cent of the labour force. In addition to that, its direct and indirect contribution to exports — such as textiles, rice and other commodities — cannot be overstated.
However, the sector is faced with multiple challenges. One of the key challenges is consistently declining and stagnating crop productivity due to land degradation, unavailability of quality seed, low mechanisation, slow adoption of new technology, water scarcity, high input costs, land fragmentation, and so on. The recurring extreme weather events unleashed by climate change — flash floods, drought, heatwaves, etc — and poor policy response have further exacerbated these challenges for the major cash crops. That said, the per-acre yield of at least two major crops — rice and maize — has increased phenomenally in recent years owing to the introduction of hybrid seed technology.
Dawn Business & Finance recently sat with Guard Group Marketing Director & CEO of Guard Group Shahzad Ali Malik, who had collaborated with China’s Yuan Longping High Tech Agriculture Company as Chief Executive of Guard Agriculture Research & Services to introduce hybrid rice technology to Pakistan in the early 2000s, to discuss the reasons behind declining crop yields and how hybrid seed technology can help boost the country’s crop productivity.
“There are many factors responsible for declining or stagnating crop yields. But primarily, it is because of a lack of research and development in and unavailability of good quality seeds. We have five field crops: wheat, cotton, rice, maize and sugarcane,” Mr Malik says.
‘Of the many factors responsible for declining or stagnating crop yields, lack of research and development in, and unavailability of, good quality seeds are key’
“Out of these five crops, only two are performing satisfactorily — maize and rice. If you look at the reasons, you would find that it’s due to the adoption of hybrid seed technology. In the case of maize, the hybrid variety was introduced by multinational companies some 30 years ago, and in the case of the rice crop, the technology was brought here purely and exclusively by national seed companies.”
Because of hybrid seed technology, rice production has increased manifold, he says. For example, the per acre yield of Sindh’s rice farmers from the conventional, non-basmati varieties ranged between 40 maunds and 45 maunds. But their yields rose to 100-110 maunds per acre after the introduction of hybrid seeds.
“So, the crop productivity more than doubled and farmers’ income more than doubled in areas where hybrid rice seed was adopted. There was a visible reduction in poverty in the rice-growing areas of Sindh and considerable improvements in the socioeconomic conditions of the population. Besides, the technology has helped us tremendously increase valuable export revenues as our rice exports rose from 250-300 million dollars in 2000-01 to $3.9bn last year. This year we expect export revenues to exceed or reach $5bn.”
Even though the private sector has started investing in hybrid seed development, this interest is limited to only a few companies. “New seed variety development takes 9-12 years. It’s a very expensive, time-consuming and tedious process. It just not only involves research and development and big investments but also field trials and government approvals. Even after that you don’t know if the new seed variety will be commercially successful or not. So the private sector is reluctant in making investments in this area because it requires a long gestation period, and yet there is no certainty about commercial success,” Mr Malik argues.
But he feels that this mindset needs to be changed. “Our businesspeople should start thinking in the long term. Likewise, multinationals did not bring new seed technology and varieties due to Plant Breeder Rights [PBR] issues. Now we have protected the PBRs, and hopefully multinational companies will enter into the business of seed development going forward.”
‘We spend 2-3 years on field trials and then as much time on getting approvals, which is very tedious — the government needs to revamp the whole process to fast-track our agriculture revival’
According to him, initially hybrid rice and maize seeds were imported. Now they are produced locally, although male and female parental lines are still being imported. “In the case of rice, we are trying to develop parental lines in Pakistan as well. Though the rice technology is imported from China, we get better yields from it in Pakistan. Now we need to bring production lines here. So things are evolving with the passage of time.”
Another major reason that is impeding private interest and investment in seed development relates to lengthy and cumbersome approvals and regulatory frameworks. “We have a very tedious approval and regulatory mechanism in place. We need to fast-track approvals. Today we spend 2-3 years on field trials and then as much time on getting approvals. Once the approval is granted, we encounter regulatory issues. These are again very cumbersome and tedious. The government needs to revamp the whole process to cut the time involved to fast-track our agriculture revival,” he emphasises.
Mr Malik points out that climate change is posing new threats to the nation’s agriculture economy. “It is high time that we start working on climate-resilient seed varieties as we experience droughts and heat waves more frequently than before. Last year, heat waves prevented rice grain growth, damaging the crop and causing significant losses to farmers. These climate events are likely to increase in the future; hence, we should focus on developing heat, drought and salinity-tolerant varieties. Our company is working on it. We have heat- and drought-tolerant varieties, and our seed varieties performed better than others last year.”
His company is now also working on hybrid cotton, again in collaboration with a Chinese company, to revive the country’s cotton crop. At present, Pakistan’s cotton output has declined to less than five million bales from 14 million bales in 2014. “In 2012, one cotton hybrid variety was approved in Punjab. But we could not commercialise it due to different reasons. One of the reasons was the ban on cotton seed imports. But now the restrictions on cotton seed imports have been lifted and the longstanding issue resolved after my meeting with the prime minister along with other prominent businessmen in March. Cotton is a very important crop for us. Our textile industry has to import raw cotton to meet its requirements due to declining productivity.”
He appreciated that the current government has brought focus back on agriculture for food security and boosting exports. “Both the federal and Punjab governments are now focused on agriculture revival. The case in point is that in November last year a national seed development and regulatory authority was approved by the national assembly. It has yet to start functioning, but it’s a good sign. The removal of the cotton seed import ban is another example. I hope this focus will continue and the agricultural economy will benefit from it.”
Apart from seed development, Mr Malik says the government must look at encouraging farm mechanisation. “It is also a neglected area. We need combined harvesters, rice planters, seeders, balers, and so on, and not just tractors, to improve the quality of crops and reduce post-harvest waste. We should look at mechanisation as a whole. Besides, we need to support farmers to adopt drip irrigation and other water-saving technologies in view of climate change impacts on water availability.”
With the budget for the next fiscal year around the corner, Malik wants the government to give tax incentives to the businessmen to rope in private investment in agribusinesses. “Our businessmen are reluctant to enter agribusinesses because of longer gestation periods. My submission would be to not tax agricultural inputs. It is important for encouraging investment in agricultural mechanisation and research and development,” he concludes.
Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 2nd, 2025
