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

ISLAMABAD: The coronavirus outbreak has adversely impacted the national economy and the performance of all major sectors remained dismal during the outgoing fiscal year 2019-20.

During the period under review, the agriculture sector recorded a growth of 2.67 percent considerably higher than 0.58 percent growth achieved during the same period last year.

According to the Economic Survey 2019-20 launched on Thursday, the performance of Kharif crops including rice production increased by 2.9 percent and crop output 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 was recorded at 9.178 million bales.

Meanwhile, sugarcane production witnessed a nominal reduction of 0.4 percent as 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 24.946 million tonnes during the year.

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, oilseeds, and vegetables. Cotton ginning declined by 4.61 percent due to a decrease in the production of cotton crops.

The crops sector experienced an overall growth of 2.98 percent due to increase in growth of crops by 2.90 percent mainly due to sufficient availability of inputs such as adequate water, certified seeds, pesticides, and an increase in credit disbursement despite lower fertilizer prices.

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