Recent Evidence on Farm Size and Land Productivity: Implications for Public Policy

Munir Ahmad () and Sarfraz Khan Qureshi
Additional contact information
Sarfraz Khan Qureshi: Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad.

The Pakistan Development Review, 1999, vol. 38, issue 4, 1135-1153

Abstract: Agricultural productivity is low in most of the developing countries including Pakistan. Moreover, slow and meandering agricultural growth is unable to keep pace with the fast and persistently growing population pressure in these countries. That in turn, has, continued to result in malnutrition and recurrent famines [Cornia (1985)]. Worse than this are the results of an ILO (1977) study, which has shown that food consumption inequalities have actually increased overtime not only in the food deficit countries but also in countries experiencing rapid agricultural growth. This points to the ever-hanging shadows of food deficiency and resulting malnutrition over the countries characterised by slow or negative growth in per capita food production and perverted income distribution [Cornia (1985)]. The only choice with these countries is to enhance food production and provide better access to food consumption for the poor masses. In order to achieve this objective policy-makers consider various options including increased use of modern inputs—mechanical and biological technologies, and removal or reform of the prevalent socio-economic power structure in agriculture that is considered to be an impediment to growth. It may not be desirable to apply these options separately in order to achieve the objective of reducing rural poverty [Cornia (1985)]. Growth in agriculture—that is sustainable and appropriate, is possible when all factors of production are accessible to all strata of the farming community. This is particularly so in the case of access to land. In this regard, land redistribution accompanied by increased input supply is the preferred policy option.

Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.pide.org.pk/pdf/PDR/1999/Volume4/1135-1153.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pid:journl:v:38:y:1999:i:4:p:1135-1153

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Pakistan Development Review from Pakistan Institute of Development Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Khurram Iqbal ().