Agricultural Changes in Pakistan: An In-Depth Analysis of Agricultural Policies Comparing Military and Civil Governments (1971-1989)
Agriculture is the life line of Pakistan. It plays a major role in contribution for the GDP. Pakistan has seen a lot of change in government policies from its advent. Agriculture is the most important economic sector of Pakistan. In this paper it was analyzed the agricultural policies of Zia-ul-Haq and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. This comparison was in order to critically analyze the military and civil governments for their contribution to Pakistan and its future. This paper is a pure Qualitative research on route of exploration. In addition to exploratory, this study also used ethnographic, explanatory, descriptive and historical methods to gain contextually grounded insights into functioning of Pakistan’s agricultural policies. It was found that mostly the rulers of Pakistan emphasized upon extending their rules and for this extension they used every negative means. Instead of being remembered in the history for their high-end results and futuristic approach they controlled the masses by un-achievable promises and vague goals. If the previous rulers would have done something good for the economy of Pakistan after 1971, there would have been quiet a boom in the economy and the economic and energy crisis we are facing now wouldn’t have been our fate. Key w ords : Agricultural Policies, Economic Impact, Military regimes, Civil Regimes
AGRICULTURAL POLICY AND WHEAT PRODUCTION: A CASE STUDY OF PAKISTAN
The study aims to determine the effect of Agriculture Policy on wheat production in Pakistan. The effect of change in tax/subsidy on agricultural productivity depends upon their respective sensitivities, which is reflected through the value of Nominal Protection Coefficient (NPC). NPC is a ratio between border prices and prices received by the local producer. Using the data for the period 1971-2006, the study concludes that the government policy has insignificant effect on wheat production though the sign of its coefficient is positive. JEL Classification: H23, H24, Q18.
Solving Pakistan's Poverty Puzzle: Whom Should We Believe? What Should We Do?
Understanding Pakistan’s economic performance has never been easy. Its capacity to generate impressive rates of economic growth in the 1960s and 1980s with low levels of savings, investment and very poor human development indicators confounded its critics. Indeed during the overall period 1960–1990 Pakistan’s growth performance would place it in the top ten countries in the world. This made an eminent economist Professor Richard Eckaus remark, “Pakistan is a puzzle, a miracle of levitation. With one of the lowest domestic savings rate in Asia, its economy has performed quite creditably. Since we do not believe in miracles, we have to wonder whether the capital inflows that have sustained this growth will last”.1 Unfortunately they did not. Pakistan’s growth rate in the 1990s came tumbling down, the result of a number of factors of which a decline in capital inflows also played a significant part. If Pakistan’s growth performance has been in part difficult to justify then understanding or explaining changes and wide fluctuations in its poverty levels has posed even a more challenging task. Pakistan has witnessed over the last three decades periods of high economic growth, as in the 1960s, accompanied with increasing poverty levels, periods of low economic growth, as in the 1970s, accompanied by reductions in poverty levels, periods of high economic growth leading to a decline in poverty as in the 1980s and periods of low economic growth as in the 1990s accompanied by as we shall see by increasing poverty levels.