Water Policy In Pakistan Issues And Options Mahmood Ahmad by Mahmood Ahmad 9783031361302, 303136130X instant download after payment.

Despite a significant amount of irrigated land, Pakistan has not been able to build on its agricultural endowment in at least two significant ways with the result that current export earnings are suppressed but also does not build on the endowment it has to lift more of its population out of low economic value agriculture as a source of livelihood. In the short to medium term, serious efforts at national poverty alleviation will demand no less than working on both fronts with dual policy objectives in mind (i) ensuring that those employed in agriculture have the chance to obtain decent livelihoods; (ii) ensuring that the agricultural base of the economy can be harnessed to create both enough economic surplus such that there are requisite other industries for people to move to when they are forced or transition out of relying on agriculture as their primary source of livelihoods. The current equilibrium between these policy objectives and competing forces is significantly misbalanced. For instance, during 1970–2014, econometric analyses of the link between the country’s agricultural exports and GDP growth show that agricultural exports have a negligible impact on overall economic growth. This is because of the un-competitiveness (higher prices combined with lower quality) of the country’s agricultural commodities vis-à-vis competitors’ exports. What this means is that far too many resources (both in the form of subsidies to keep agricultural commodity markets operable as well as in the number of people who are kept absorbed in economically low-value agriculture) are locked and unable to be tapped for the purposes of personal as well as national economic development.