EXISTING STATE OF THE FARM LAND MANAGEMENT AND ITS IMPACT ON FARM PRODUCTIVITY IN KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA

Abstract

Pakistan is basically an agrarian economy. The greater proportion of GDP is
contributed by agricultural sector. Basically the overall development of the economy is
based on the proper management of farm land and improvement of agro-based
industries. This study seeks answer to the question, “How farm land should be
managed, which is conducive to enhance the farm productivity?”
The Pakistan Agriculture Council has divided the province into four different climatic
regions. It is proposed that one district (say stratum) selected randomly from each
region would fairly represent the province. A complete list of villages in the sampled
districts has been prepared, which serves as a sampling frame. It is assumed that the
basic agrarian features within the same climatic zone are homogenous, thus ten villages
from each district have been randomly chosen. The total sample size of 200 farmers has
been interviewed and data on tenure statue, operational holdings, irrigation status
fragmentation, water logging/salinity and land management etc. are collected.
It has been evidenced from the results and discussion below that the farm land has not
been properly managed. Smallness of small farms, inappropriate tenure status
uneconomic land utilization, the problems of fragmentation, water logging and salinity
indicate that the overall agrarian structure has not been appropriately managed and is
not conducive to increase the rate of economic growth. Due to this reason the overall
development of the economy has been stagnant.
For appropriate farm management, it has been suggested that new policy for land
reforms is required in such a way that ownership of the farm land should not be changed,
but the size of operational holdings should be equalized. There is sufficient room to
improve the farm management by proper land utilization, better cropping pattern and
enhancing the intensity of cropping.
The potential size of operational holdings has been decreased, because of water logging
and salinity. Farmers have to be educated and guided to use gypsum and green manures
or to cultivate such variety of seeds which are salt tolerant. This will reduce salinity in
the soil of farm land. They may also be motivated to launch the drainage system in the
water logged area. A small financial support by the state may help to rehabilitate the
saline and water logged farm lands.