Pakistan’s agriculture feeds a nation, anchors rural livelihoods and earns scarce foreign exchange. It also stands on increasingly fragile ground. Climate shocks, water scarcity, policy drift and demographic pressure are converging on a sector that employs roughly two-fifths of the labor force and supplies the country’s staples. Whether Pakistan can be food secure by midcentury will hinge on decisions made in the next decade.
Climate change is the most visible stressor. Heat waves shorten growing seasons and sap yields of wheat, rice and cotton. Floods strip topsoil, destroy crops and damage canals and roads; droughts weaken livestock and wither fodder in arid districts. These shocks raise costs for irrigation and pest control, make credit riskier and trap small farmers in recovery mode rather than investment. Climate-resilient tools—hardier seeds, better drainage, micro-irrigation and weather-index insurance—exist, but adoption remains patchy, constrained by finance, information gaps and underpowered extension services.
Beneath this volatility lies a structural problem: water. The Indus Basin irrigation system once powered an agrarian miracle, but per-capita availability has fallen sharply as population has grown. Canals leak, flood irrigation wastes water on fields, and largely unmetered groundwater pumping drains aquifers and drives up energy costs. Salinity and waterlogging quietly erode productivity across millions of hectares. Modern practices are spreading, but too slowly and unevenly to offset the losses.
Policy has not helped. For years, governments have lurched between price supports and crisis response. Blanket subsidies stabilize incomes in bad years but distort crop choices and favor larger landholders, while starving public goods like research, seed systems and rural infrastructure. Markets for perishables lack grading, cold chains and transparent price discovery, leaving farmers with a small share of consumer prices and little incentive to invest in higher-value crops.
Demographics add urgency. By 2050 Pakistan’s population is likely to exceed 400 million. Urbanization and a growing middle class will demand more dairy, meat, fruits and vegetables—precisely the foods that require reliable water, cold storage and safety standards. Meanwhile, farms are shrinking through inheritance, youth are leaving the land, and productivity must rise faster just to stand still.
The picture is not hopeless. Pakistan has arable land, diverse agro-ecologies, an irrigation footprint many countries would envy and an entrepreneurial farming community. Smartphone penetration and a budding agritech sector offer new channels for advice and finance. The constraint is not potential but pace and coherence.
What would change the trajectory? Make water the organizing principle—repair canals, reward efficiency, regulate unsustainable pumping and invest in drainage. Go all-in on climate-smart productivity with resilient seeds, conservation agriculture and mobile advisories paired with insurance and storage. Fix policy by shifting spending toward research and extension, stabilizing trade signals and modernizing markets so quality is rewarded. Unlock finance and technology for smallholders through shared services and value-chain credit. And align agriculture with nutrition by promoting pulses, oilseeds and horticulture alongside cereals.
If Pakistan acts decisively between now and 2035, food security by 2050 is within reach. If it does not, crisis imports, rural inequality and chronic undernutrition will become the norm. The choice is stark—but manageable.
