Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s recent assertion that agriculture and livestock hold the key to Pakistan’s rapid economic revival is accurate in principle. The sector contributes nearly a quarter of GDP, employs more than a third of the labour force, and remains the largest source of livelihoods. Livestock alone accounts for over 60 percent of agriculture’s value addition, while Pakistan ranks among the world’s leading milk producers with considerable untapped potential in both milk and meat exports. Few sectors offer such simultaneous opportunities to generate growth, reduce poverty, improve food security, and earn foreign exchange.

Yet the prime minister’s claim that the economy can be revived within a year through agriculture highlights the gap between ambition and execution. The crisis in agriculture has never been about a lack of potential. It is the result of decades of policy neglect, institutional decay, and distorted incentives. Successive governments have acknowledged the sector’s importance, but budgetary allocations, research spending, extension services, water management, and market reforms have consistently failed to reflect that recognition. The current year’s federal and provincial budgets are no exception. Despite repeated references to transformation, agriculture remains peripheral in official priorities, a contradiction that is proving increasingly costly.

Pakistan now imports billions of dollars’ worth of food and raw materials for its textile industry, while food exports have weakened over time. This erodes precious foreign exchange at a moment when the economy is heavily dependent on external financing. Rising production costs, unpredictable pricing, market manipulation, inadequate storage, and weak value chains continue to undermine farmers’ incomes. Producers are expected to increase output while bearing risks that neither markets nor public policy adequately mitigate.

The prime minister’s emphasis on technology, artificial intelligence, disease control, and value addition deserves recognition. However, technology cannot compensate for dysfunctional policy. Farmers will not invest simply because AI is introduced into agriculture if fertilisers remain expensive, energy costs continue to rise, water becomes scarcer, and markets fail to offer remunerative prices. With industry struggling and exports stagnating, agriculture remains one of the few sectors capable of driving inclusive growth, but only if reforms are implemented.

Real transformation requires strengthening research institutions, developing indigenous vaccines, improving traceability systems, correcting market distortions, expanding rural credit, investing in climate resilience, enhancing irrigation efficiency, and creating incentives for private investment across agricultural value chains. These are not abstract goals but practical necessities if Pakistan is to harness the full potential of its agricultural base.

Every government promises to transform agriculture, yet few have been willing to undertake the reforms necessary to achieve that aim. Declarations that agriculture can revive the economy will remain aspirational unless authorities move beyond rhetoric and commit to sustained, transparent, and well‑designed policy reforms. Without such action, the promise of revival will remain barren.

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