Pakistan is basically an agrarian economy; following factors signify the importance of agriculture in our economic structure.
- Thirty two percent of our GNP comes from agriculture sector.
- We fulfill our 70 percent to 80 percent foreign exchange requirements from the income generated from agriculture sector.
- Thirty nine percent of our total population is employed as Labour force in the agriculture.
- Seventy nine percent of our total population depends upon agriculture indirectly.
- In spite of our enormous dependence or agriculture sector level of our agriculture produce is extremely low, i.e we produce only 20 mounds of wheat per acre as compared to 50 mounds per acre in the United States and only 11 mounds of rice per acre as compared to 50 mounds in Italy.
- About 30 percent of the population which depends on agriculture is semi-employed.
- Seventy two percent of our total population lives in rural areas and depends solely, on agriculture.
- With the exception of a limited number of big land owners the rural population is living a life of untold misery and deprivation.
- Due to backward agriculture, unemployment in the rural areas is widespread.
- Due to immense privation, level of illiteracy in the rural areas is almost double of the urban areas.
- A large portion of the rural population has almost no or very little access to facilities like roads, railways, telegraph and telephone etc.
Conclusion
All these facts lead us to the conclusion that backwardness of agriculture is the root cause of tardy rural development, if we want to make our country economically strong we shall have to address the problems of rural and agricultural development on priority basis.