The Statistical Book 2011 of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reveals that Pakistan is way behind in wheat, rice, sugarcane and pulses production, both globally and regionally.
According to experts, water shortage, absence of high yield verities of seeds, and lack of research and development are the basic causes of low per hectare yield of crops in Pakistan. The two consecutive floods in 2010 and 2011 have also disrupted the agricultural productivity of the country. The FAO report released last week relates to authenticated data up to year 2010.
According to the report Pakistan is among the top ten producers of wheat with around 24 million ton output in 2010, but its per hectare yield of 2.6 ton pales in comparison with over 115 million ton wheat produced by China with per hectare yield of 4.7 ton.
India obtains 2.8 ton wheat per hectare, Bangladesh 2.4 ton. The United Kingdom with wheat yield of 7.7 ton per hectare is top in productivity but its wheat cycle is spread over one year against five months in Pakistan, the report said.
In rice Pakistan with average productivity of 9 million ton is among the top 12 producers and its per hectare rice yield is 3.1 ton. China again is the largest producer of rice with an output of 197 million ton with per hectare yield of 6.5 ton, Bangladesh obtains 4.2 ton rice per hectare, Sri Lanka 4.1 ton per hectare and even India with rice productivity of 3.3 ton per hectare is ahead of Pakistan, the FAO report said.
In coarse grains China produces 5.2 ton per hectare, Pakistan 2.2 ton per hectare and India only 1.2 ton per hectare. Italy with per hectare yield of 7.6 ton per hectare is the productivity leader in coarse grains.
China produces 0.6 ton per hectare of oil crops while India and Pakistan produce 0.3 ton per hectare. The leader in oil crops production is Malaysia that obtains 4.5 ton of oil crop per hectare.
Pakistan produces 1.1 million to 0.9 million ton of pulses per year with per hectare yield of 0.6 ton which is the lowest in the region. China produces 4.4 million ton pulse per annum at 1.2 ton per hectare which is twice that of Pakistan.
Per hectare production of pulses in Bangladesh is 0.9 ton while it is 0.7 ton in India. India though is the largest producer of pulses in the world with total annual production of 17.11 million ton. The highest per hectare yield of pulses is 3.9 ton which is obtained by the United Kingdom.
In roots and tuber production Pakistan is on top in productivity with per hectare yield of 21.6 ton but it is far below the world best of 42.1 ton obtained by the United States of America. India produces 20.6 ton roots and tuber per hectare, China produces 17.8 ton per hectare and Bangladesh 17.7 ton per hectare. Pakistan’s sugarcane production of 52.4 ton per hectare is slightly higher than that of Bangladesh that obtains 43.8 ton of sugarcane per hectare. India with per hectare yield of 66.1 ton is the leader in sugarcane productivity in the region followed by China that obtains a yield of 65.7 ton per hectare.
Brazil is the largest global producer of sugarcane with total output of 719 million ton at 79.2 ton per hectare. The highest sugarcane yield is obtained by Columbia which produces 118.1 ton per hectare, the FAO report said.
