Despite tall claims about better agriculture productivity, the country’s main crop wheat has shown a declining trend in per acre yield during the last four years.
The State Bank’s latest Statistical Bulletin showed the per acre yield achieved in 2010 could not be achieved again in the next three years.
The per acre yield of wheat in 2010-11 was 2,933kg while in 2013-14 it dropped to 2,797kg per acre.
However, the area for cultivation of wheat increased during the last four years from 8.901 million acres in 2010-11 to 9.039m acres in 2013-14.
Wheat is the biggest crop and the staple food for many millions but neither the government nor the private sector seems to have made significant efforts to improve the low yield.
However, while wheat yield may have dropped, rice showed some improvement during the same period.
The rice per acre yield was much higher than the three years earlier. It went up to 2,437kg in 2013-14 from 2,039kg in 2010-11, a 20pc increase.
The massive production has created a rice glut in the local market as the exporters could not benefit from high yielding rice crop.
The area under cultivation of rice also increased during the period from 2,365m acres to 2,789m acres in 2013-14.
