Dynamics of Agricultural Productivity and Poverty in Pakistan

Abstract

This paper addresses two topics which essentially compliment each other. The first is the empirical investigation of the relationship between aggregate agricultural productivity and poverty in Pakistan through the course of time. The second is the estimation of the central inputs or determinants of agricultural production, again on an aggregate level and through time. The main empirical findings of this research suggest that increases in agricultural productivity have alleviated poverty in Pakistan but not to the extent to which the negative forces of a high population growth and increasing food prices have worsened its incidence. In the case of the determinants of agricultural productivity, the results show that accompanied with the size of the cropped area, fertiliser off-take has played the most significant and powerful role in increasing agricultural productivity through time in Pakistan, especially at the onset of the Green Revolution __ the introduction of High Yield Variety crops and seeds in the late sixties.