Distributional Impacts of Agricultural Growth in Pakistan: A Multiplier Analysis

In spite of substantial growth in agricultural GDP in the 1990s, rural poverty rates in Pakistan did not decline. This paper explores the reasons for this lack of correlation between increases in agricultural production and poverty reduction through an analysis of growth linkages using a 2001-02 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM)-based semi-inputoutput model. Model simulations indicate that expansion of traditional crop agriculture can significantly benefit rural poor farmers. However, because of skewed distribution of land and earnings from land, landless agricultural labourers and the rural non-farm poor (who, together, account for 61 percent of the rural poor) do not benefit directly from growth in the crop sector. In the absence of a change in the structure of rural incomes and employment, further measures will likely be needed for rapid poverty reduction in Pakistan, including greater efforts to boost the livestock sector, expansion of the rural non-farm economy (in addition to agricultural growth-induced linkage effects), and targeted interventions to the poorest rural households.