Interview with Dr Zulfiqar Ali, Vice Chancellor – University of Agriculture Faisalabad: ‘Pakistan’s yield gap is not a mystery—it is a failure of systems, not potential’
Dr. Zulfiqar Ali is a senior plant breeder and agricultural scientist and currently serves as Vice Chancellor of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. Trained in plant breeding and genetics, with post-doctoral research experience in Australia and China, his work focuses on climate-resilient crops, stress tolerance, and modern breeding systems.
He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, with an h-index of 30 and more than 2,600 citations and has supervised over 65 postgraduate theses.
A recipient of several national awards, including the HEC Best University Teacher Award, Dr. Ali has also led research commercialization, quality assurance, and international academic programs, placing him at the centre of Pakistan’s agricultural research and reform agenda.
Following are the edited excerpts of a recent conversation BR Research had with him:
BR Research: Pakistan’s agricultural productivity has remained largely stagnant for the past two decades despite being a predominantly agrarian economy. From an academic and research standpoint, what empirical evidence convinces you that agri-transformation has now become a strategic imperative rather than a policy choice?
Dr. Zulfiqar Ali: For Pakistan, agricultural transformation is no longer a sectoral preference; it is a survival strategy. Agriculture still underpins the real economy—it contributes roughly a quarter of GDP, employs over a third of the labour force, and anchors textile and food industries that earn much of our foreign exchange. For millions of rural households, it remains the main buffer against poverty and food insecurity.
Yet, when you look at the data over the last two decades, yields of wheat, rice, maize, and cotton have grown slowly and remain well below both experimental potential and regional benchmarks. Most of the sector’s growth has come from bringing more land and water into production rather than from sustained gains in efficiency, technology adoption, or value addition. In research plots and on progressive farms, we routinely see double the national average yields; the gap between what is possible and what is happening on ordinary farms is now too large to dismiss as noise.
At the same time, Pakistan has moved into the ranks of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, and agriculture is where floods, heatwaves, and erratic rainfall hit first.
Every major climate shock over the past decade has translated into damaged crops, food inflation, pressure on public finances, and often greater dependence on imported wheat, pulses, and edible oil.
When a low-productivity farm sector also becomes a net source of macroeconomic and climate risk, it is no longer just one ministry’s concern. That empirical reality is what convinces me that agricultural transformation is now a strategic imperative for Pakistan’s stability and growth, not a discretionary policy choice.
BRR: How do current yield gaps in our key crops compare to regional outputs, and what does your research suggest about the scale of economic losses Pakistan incurs due to delayed agri-modernization?
ZA: In our key crops, Pakistan is routinely operating far below what is technically and economically possible. National wheat yields hover a little above 3 tons per hectare, while on the same soils—with better seed, balanced fertilizer, and improved agronomy—UAF trials and progressive farmers regularly harvest 6–7 tons. Paddy yields for many farmers sit around 3.5–4 tons per hectare, compared with 6–8 tons in high-performing systems and even higher in well-managed experiments. Cotton and sugarcane show the same pattern: Pakistan’s average cotton lint yields, around 0.7–0.8 tons per hectare, are less than half those achieved in high-performing countries, and sugarcane yields on ordinary farms, roughly 65–70 tons per hectare, are well below the 100–120 tons per hectare seen in better-managed plots and leading producers.
Maize is the partial exception. The shift to hybrids and a clearer technology package has pushed average yields much closer to the frontier, and the yield gap is narrower. That contrast is revealing; it shows how quickly performance improves when genetics, incentives, and advisory services line up.
Across wheat, rice, cotton, maize, and sugarcane, most empirical work—and our own evidence—suggests that attainable-to-actual yield gaps commonly range from about 20 percent in the best cases to over 50 percent in more stressed systems, with a central tendency around 40 percent.
Economically, that means we are leaving millions of tons of grain and fibre in the field every year, importing food and feed that could be grown at home, and forgoing tens of billions of rupees of farm income. Delayed agri-modernization is therefore not an abstract loss; it is a measurable GDP and food-security gap, season after season.
BRR: Given Pakistan’s recurring flood and climate-induced shocks, how critical is the integration of climate-smart technologies, precision agriculture, and data-driven farm management? What are the most research-validated interventions that should be prioritized at the national level?
ZA: Given Pakistan’s exposure to floods, droughts, and heatwaves, integrating climate-smart technologies, precision agriculture, and data-driven management is absolutely central to the survival of our farm sector.
Agriculture is carrying three burdens at once: feeding a growing population, sustaining rural livelihoods, and generating export earnings. Low-productivity, input-intensive systems cannot bear that load under a volatile climate. Evidence from research plots and farmer fields shows that the farms coping best with recent shocks are those combining resilient genetics, smarter water and nutrient management, and timely information.
From UAF’s work, three priorities stand out for national scale-up. The first is climate-resilient genetics and cropping systems: heat-, drought-, and disease-tolerant varieties of wheat, rice, maize, and other staples that can hold yield in bad years, supported by faster varietal turnover and stronger seed systems.
The second is water-smart and soil-smart agronomy: laser land levelling, bed planting, alternate wetting and drying in rice, and drip or sprinkler irrigation where feasible, combined with soil testing, balanced fertilization (including micronutrients), organic amendments, and conservation agriculture. These practices routinely save 20–30 percent of water while improving yields and fertilizer-use efficiency.
The third is data-enabled decision-making and risk management: using weather forecasts, satellite-based crop and moisture maps, and genomics-based diagnostics to guide sowing windows, irrigation, fertilizer timing, and pest or disease control, coupled with index-based insurance and emergency credit so farmers can recover quickly from shocks. Together, these three clusters—resilient seed systems, water- and soil-efficient agronomy, and digital advisory and surveillance—are the most research-validated levers for climate-smart transformation and should be treated as core national infrastructure.
BRR: In your view, what structural reforms in agricultural education, extension services, and research–industry linkages are essential for enabling transformational change?
ZA: Lasting change in Pakistan’s agriculture will come less from a single breakthrough technology and more from changing how we produce and move knowledge. That requires structural reform in three connected spaces: education, extension, and research–industry linkages.
On the education side, our agricultural universities must move beyond narrow, input-focused curricula toward training graduates who are comfortable with precision agriculture, digital tools, climate-smart production, soil and carbon management, and emissions accounting, alongside classical agronomy, and breeding. This also means much more interdisciplinary work—connecting agronomy with data science, climate modelling, economics, and value-chain analysis—and far more experiential learning on model farms, research stations, and with agribusiness partners, so graduates design solutions that work in real farming systems, not just on paper.
Extension is the second pillar. It remains the main interface with farmers but is often under-resourced and disconnected. We need to move from a top-down model to farmer-centred, digitally enabled advisory services: mobile apps, call centres, SMS and voice systems, and sensor-based decision-support tools that offer location-specific guidance on irrigation, nutrients, pests, and climate risks.
Extension staff should receive regular technical up-skilling through universities and research institutes, with performance assessed on outcomes such as adoption and yield gains, not just the number of visits or trainings delivered.
The third pillar is stronger research–industry linkage. Universities, public institutes, private firms, and extension departments need joint platforms to work on concrete problems—for example, validating climate-resilient varieties, precision-irrigation technologies, or residue-management solutions—with shared data and co-funded pilots.
Adapting elements of the land-grant model and aligning provincial research funding to reward genuine collaboration would significantly shorten the distance from lab to field and help turn agriculture into a knowledge-driven, innovation-led sector.
BRR: As Pakistan aims to enhance food security and export competitiveness, where do you see the highest-impact opportunities within our agricultural landscape that require immediate state and private-sector investment?
ZA: If the goal is to improve food security and export competitiveness simultaneously, we should prioritize investments that unlock multiple gains with each rupee. Four domains stand out.
The first is modern seed systems, input quality, and mechanization in major crops. Investing in climate-resilient, high-yielding varieties of wheat, rice, maize, oilseeds, and pulses—and in the seed multiplication and quality-control systems that get them to farmers quickly—remains the cheapest way to raise productivity. When combined with affordable, smallholder-friendly mechanization through rental and custom-hiring models, we see rapid improvements in timeliness, input-use efficiency, and yields.
The second is water-efficient production and groundwater governance. Pakistan’s food security will stand or fall on how intelligently we use the Indus Basin. Public and private investment in laser land levelling, bed and furrow planting, drip, and sprinkler irrigation where economically viable, and better drainage and salinity management can significantly lift water productivity. At the same time, monitoring, and regulation of groundwater abstraction—especially with the spread of solar pumps—are essential so that today’s solutions do not become tomorrow’s crises.
The third is value chains for horticulture, livestock, and oilseeds, supported by cold-chain and processing infrastructure. Reducing post-harvest losses in fruits and vegetables, improving storage and processing for products like rice, citrus, mango, meat, and dairy, and building a serious national oilseed and soybean value chain can simultaneously cut the food and feed import bill, raise farm incomes, and create exportable surpluses.
The fourth is digital agriculture, market linkages, and the institutions that enable them. Weather, satellite, and market-price data need to be translated into simple advisory services for farmers, while digital tools for traceability, contract farming, and warehouse receipts can help our products meet high-value market standards. Joint innovation platforms linking universities, farmers, and agribusinesses are essential to make all of this stick.
BRR: Pakistan’s soils show rapidly declining organic matter (below 0.5 percent in many districts) and severe micronutrient deficiencies (zinc and boron). What evidence-based interventions—input reforms, soil-amendment protocols, or cropping-system changes—are essential to reverse soil degradation at scale, and what would be their measurable impact on yields in wheat, cotton, and rice?
ZA: Pakistan’s intensively cultivated soils now often show organic-matter levels below 0.5 percent in major districts, along with widespread zinc and boron deficiencies. That combination undermines yield, fertilizer-use efficiency, and resilience. The evidence suggests that three complementary intervention “baskets” are required.
The first is input reform—moving from NPK-only fertilization to truly balanced nutrition. On zinc- and boron-deficient soils, appropriately timed Zn and B applications routinely raise wheat, rice, and cotton yields by 10–20 percent, while improving grain quality and reducing hidden hunger. Embedding this through soil-testing services, micronutrient-blended fertilizers, and targeted recommendations can deliver quick wins.
The second is soil-amendment protocols that rebuild soil carbon. Long-term trials in rice–wheat and cotton–wheat systems show that retaining crop residues, reducing tillage, and combining mineral fertilizers with farmyard manure, compost, or biochar increase soil organic carbon, improve structure and water-holding capacity, and often raise yields by another 5–15 percent.
The third is cropping-system change: bringing pulses and other legumes, fodders, and cover crops into rotation so soils gain biological nitrogen, improved aggregation, and more diverse rooting patterns. In many studies, wheat yields after legumes are 10–20 percent higher than after non-legumes. Over a 5–10-year horizon, serious adoption of all three baskets can realistically lift average wheat, rice, and cotton yields by 20–30 percent in degraded zones, while reversing soil decline and lowering emissions per ton of output.
BRR: Irrigation efficiency in Pakistan is among the lowest globally, with 40–50 percent conveyance losses in canals and watercourses. Based on UAF’s research, what specific engineering, regulatory, or digital-metering interventions can realistically lift water productivity in Punjab’s canal-command areas within five years? Which crops would show the highest marginal gains?
ZA: Pakistan’s irrigation system loses an unacceptably high share of water between the canal head and the crop, while more than half of current irrigation demand is met from largely unregulated groundwater. UAF’s research and field experience suggest that a focused package of engineering upgrades, digital metering, and governance reforms can lift water productivity in Punjab’s canal commands by around 20–40 percent within five years.
On the engineering side, priority measures include upgrading earthen watercourses to properly designed, partially lined, or piped systems to reduce seepage and unauthorized diversions; precision land management through laser levelling and bed–furrow planting to ensure uniform water application and reduced depth per irrigation; and on-farm high-efficiency irrigation—drip, sprinkler, and alternate wetting and drying or direct-seeded rice where appropriate—particularly in high-value and water-stressed areas.
On the digital and regulatory side, low-cost flow meters at outlets and farms, simple data logging, and, at key control points, automated gates and SCADA systems can shift the system from a “supply-push” network to one managed volumetrically. This must be coupled with gradual reform of warabandi toward volumetric allocation and incentives, groundwater mapping and registration of high-capacity wells, and clear rules governing large-scale solar-pump deployment. The highest marginal gains in kilograms of output per cubic metre of water come from vegetables, orchards, and seed production under drip irrigation, followed by cotton, maize, and wheat on beds, and then rice and sugarcane where alternate wetting and drying, improved drainage, and better zoning are implemented.
BRR: Over 80 percent of Pakistan’s seed market in major crops still operates informally, limiting genetic gain. What concrete regulatory and breeding-pipeline reforms are required to accelerate certified-seed adoption—particularly for maize, cotton, and oilseeds—and what is the estimated yield and economic delta if certified varieties reached even 50 percent penetration?
ZA: When we view agriculture through the lens of genetics, the bottleneck in Pakistan begins with seed. A large majority of seed in major crops is still sourced from informal channels, meaning many farmers plant older, heterogeneous, or low-vigour material. This slows genetic gain and wastes fertilizer and water.
The reform agenda has three layers. On regulation, we need faster, more transparent variety release and certification, combined with stronger post-market quality enforcement. Time-bound, multi-location trials, truth-in-labelling, digital traceability (for example, QR-coded bags linked to a national seed database), and real enforcement of plant-breeders’ rights would give serious breeders and companies the confidence to invest while protecting farmers from malpractice. On the breeding side, we should build on the maize hybrid success by using doubled haploids, marker-assisted selection, and genomic selection to deliver heat- and drought-tolerant hybrids and varieties in maize, cotton, and oilseeds, with clear pathways from breeder seed to decentralized certified-seed hubs.
On the market side, revitalized extension, demonstration plots, and smart subsidies or credit products can help smallholders switch to certified seed, while firm action against counterfeit seed ensures that “certified” genuinely signals quality.
Evidence from Pakistan and comparable systems shows that good-quality, well-adapted seed alone often delivers 15–25 percent higher yields than farm-saved or anonymous market seed. If certified maize, cotton, and oilseed varieties reached even around half of the cropped area, the resulting yield lift would translate into substantial additional production and tens of billions of rupees in farm-gate value each year, even before counting gains from improved agronomy.