Agri-Plotistan

Populist notions peddled by the media often insinuate that most of Pakistan’s rural economy is landless, with land ownership concentrated with a handful of feudals owning oversized acreage. This leads to socioeconomic inequities, the narrative goes, reflected in widespread rural poverty.

While few would dispute that inequitable distribution of wealth is a function of concentrated land ownership, one key driver of rural poverty may be too many owners, not landlessness. At least that’s the reading of the trends in land ownership by size and tenure basis in the rural sector over past five decades.

Since Pakistan’s first post-Dhaka agri-census, the country has added close to 6.3 million hectares to its total farm area, increasing to 72 percent of total land area. Ownership of farm land has seen virtually no change during this period, with close to 92 percent land owned privately.

But what has changed during the last fifty years is the constitution of this private ownership. Back in 1972, tenure classification of close to two-thirds or 30 million hectares of private farms were on non-ownership basis. Back then, there were only two million individual farm owners. Average size of owned private farms was also larger at eleven hectares, on an upward trajectory since independence.

In the decades since land reforms of mid-seventies, both tenant-based farming and owner-cum tenant-based farming have been on a decline, as aggregate area under self-operated owned farms has more than doubled to nearly 40 million hectares, or three-fourths of total private farms.

Yet, redistribution of land among landless peasants has not necessarily transformed arable area. In the latest agri-census of 2010, cultivated area stood at 37 percent of total farmlands, inching forward by only two percentage points since 1972. At the same time, while number of land owners grew over three-fold from two million private owners to 6.74 million, average land-holding size was reduced by half to 5.85 hectares.

So why has increased land ownership failed to drive growth in cultivation? While several forces may be at play, one clue is found in growing share of non-cultivated land in total farm area. While area under farms has increased, instead of turning arable, more land has been utilized towards ¬farm home-steads, becoming unavailable for cultivation altogether.

Today, more than 80 percent of farmers are classified as small-hold, owning land size under five hectares or less. Moreover, average land parcel size of small-hold farmers is less than one hectare!

What has this meant for area under cultivation? As number of landowners has increased, so has its fragmentation over generations. This also explains increase in farmstead, as more land is utilized towards building on-farm homes to accommodate growing families, ranches and other domestic uses.

This is not to say that land redistribution has not been a social positive. But to point out that fragmentation has been an unintended consequence of redistribution, with increased number of owners failing to bring more land under cultivation.