Agriculture sector grew by 2.67pc in 2019-20: Economic Survey

ISLAMABAD: The outbreak of deadly Corona virus, which had badly affected the global economies also negatively impacted the national economy and performance of all major sectors remained dismal during the outgoing fiscal year (2019-20).

However, during period under review, the agriculture sector performed well as it recorded strong growth of 2.67 percent considerably higher than 0.58 percent growth achieved during same period of last year.

According the Economic Survey 2019-20 launched here on Thursday, performance of Kharif crops including rice production increased by 2.9 percent and output of crop reached to 7.410 million tones.

The maize production in the country grew by 6.0 percent to 7.236 million tons, whereas cotton production declined by 6.9 percent and it was recorded at 9.178 million bales.

Meanwhile, sugarcane production witnessed nominal reduction of 0.4 percent as it was recorded at 66.880 million tones.

Wheat is the most important crop of Rabi season, which showed growth of 2.5 percent and reached to 24.946 million tons during the year to be ended on June 30.

Other crops having a share of 11.53 percent in agriculture value addition and 2.23 percent in GDP, showed growth of 4.57 percent mainly due to increase in production of pulses, oil seeds and vegetables. Cotton ginning declined by 4.61 percent due to decrease in production of cotton crop.

Thus, the crops sector, overall, experienced a growth of 2.98 percent due to increase in growth of important crops by 2.90 percent mainly due to sufficient availability of inputs (adequate water, certified seeds, pesticides, and an uptick in credit disbursement) despite lower fertilizer off-take.

Livestock having share of 60.56 percent in agriculture and 11.69 percent in GDP achieved the growth at 2.58 percent.

The Fishing sector having share of 2.06 percent in agriculture value addition (and 0.40 percent in GDP), grew by 0.60 percent, while Forestry sector having share of 2.13 percent in agriculture (and 0.41 percent in GDP) grew by 2.29 percent.