Pakistan has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children, exceeding 26 million — one-third of the total child population aged five to 16. The overwhelming majority of these children, who remain completely illiterate and unskilled, belong to rural areas. Consequently, they are likely to end up in the agriculture sector (crops and livestock) as smallholders, farm workers, or labourers in micro and small enterprises within rural areas.

If this long-standing national challenge persists — which seems likely, given the current inadequate investment in education, high poverty rate, and population growth rate exceeding 2.55 per cent — Pakistan’s agriculture sector will increasingly be dominated by such a workforce that lacks even basic reading and numeracy skills.

Click to see more

At the same time, agriculture is transforming into a more complex, technology-driven, and mechanised sector with an increasingly global and export-oriented focus. The greatest challenge for Pakistan’s farmers is to enhance productivity and stay globally competitive by adopting high-yielding seeds, as well as advanced technologies such as precision agriculture, high-efficiency irrigation systems, solar-powered equipment, and bio-engineered crop protection solutions.

Moreover, traceability, sanitary and phytosanitary compliance, and food safety standards have gradually become critical in recent times. Such an evolving landscape makes it increasingly difficult for illiterate and unskilled workers, who are abundantly available in rural areas, to perform effectively at farms.

An abundance of unskilled and illiterate workers may significant challenges for the rapidly evolving mechanised farms

Historically, many scholars and writers have openly argued that the widespread illiteracy in rural areas was not merely a result of budgetary constraints or oversight but rather a deliberate policy orchestrated by the landed aristocracy dominating national and provincial assemblies. The aim was to ensure a steady supply of cheap agricultural labour along with securing unwavering political support from dependent families.

This argument may have held some truth in the past, particularly when farming operations were largely manual and key tasks such as land preparation, water lifting from wells, and wheat threshing relied heavily on the use of oxen. However, in recent times, almost all farming operations, such as land preparation, sowing, irrigation, pesticide and fertiliser application, harvesting, and threshing, are now partially or fully mechanised.

This shift has facilitated the expansion of large-scale farms and corporate farming, a model actively promoted by the current government to attract both local and foreign investment. It starkly contrasts with the long-standing philosophy of land reforms advocated for over the past decades by numerous writers, political leaders, and economists who argued for capping agricultural land ownership at 12 to 50 acres and redistributing surplus land among landless farmers.

Nevertheless, in the changing agricultural landscape — characterised by a shift from subsistence farming to commercial farming, extensive mechanisation, and significant capital investment — achieving high productivity and cost competitiveness on par with other countries is viable only on farms exceeding a certain size, although labour-intensive vegetable farming and capital-intensive greenhouses are exceptions.

In short, the agriculture sector has gradually reached the point where it requires fewer, more skilled and knowledgeable farm workers capable of handling advanced crop production technologies, cutting-edge agricultural practices, and agricultural machinery. This need extends not only within the country but also to opportunities abroad for labour export.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s technical and vocational education and training (TVET) sector — comprised of multiple training providers across government, private, and not-for-profit sectors — remains significantly constrained in its scope and scale. Only a handful of training courses are being offered in the agriculture sector, and even these are predominantly focused on specific niche areas such as “tunnel farming” and “beekeeping”, largely aimed at self-employment.

Regrettably, government-run training providers are currently struggling with low enrollment in several vocational trades, largely due to a lack of focus on trainees’ employability and convenience — the two top priorities for youths aged 16 and above. It is, therefore, imperative to phase out oversaturated trades and replace them with courses specifically tailored and aligned with the needs of the agriculture sector.

Furthermore, to enhance accessibility, these programmes should be delivered directly to trainees’ doorsteps (union council level) through semi-mobile training centres that allow flexibility to relocate as needed every few months.

However, TVET initiatives can only succeed with active private sector participation, right from programme design to implementation. Unfortunately, key players such as agricultural input suppliers and manufacturers (of fertiliser, pesticide, micronutrients, tractors, etc), service providers (banks, insurance companies, microfinance institutions), and buyers (exporters, processors) have largely remained absent from these efforts, except conducting a few short training programmes for a handful farmers under corporate social responsibility or marketing initiatives.

In conclusion, a paradigm shift in TVET is essential for driving growth and advancement in the agriculture sector, but the primary challenge lies in securing sustainable funding. One viable option is to impose a minimal 0.1pc levy on the sales value of all agricultural inputs. This would amount to less than Rs5 per urea bag and Rs2 per pesticide bottle, yet collectively, the funds generated would reach billions of rupees. For greater programme effectiveness and ownership, the fund should be jointly overseen and managed by farmers’ associations, academia, research institutions, and the private sector.

Khalid Wattoo is a farmer and a development professional, and Dr Waqar Ahmad is a former Associate Professor at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, December 2nd, 2024