Agriculture and Water Policy : Toward Sustainable Inclusive Growth

This paper reviews Pakistan's
agriculture performance and analyzes its agriculture and
water policies. It discusses the nature of rural poverty and
emphasizes the reasons why agricultural growth is a critical
component to any pro-poor growth strategy for Pakistan. It
supports these arguments by summarizing key results from
recent empirical analysis where the relative benefits of
agricultural versus non-agricultural led growth are
examined. The results also provide an illustration of farm
and non-farm linkages. It summarizes recent performance of
the agriculture sector, and discusses key characteristics of
its sluggish productivity growth. Three key issues related
to increasing productivity are discussed: namely technology,
water use and water management, and policy reforms related
to markets and trade that can strengthen the enabling
environment and contribute to the promotion of
diversification towards high value agriculture.