By Muskan Naveed ISLAMABAD, Feb. 21 (INP-WealthPK): Though Pakistan is largely an agrarian country, the share of the agriculture sector in the national economy has remained somewhat dismal. The agriculture sector’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stands at 19.2% while it employs 38.5% of the country’s total labour force. Moreover, around 65-70% of the population is either directly or indirectly dependent on the agriculture sector. Despite the importance, the agriculture sector has been faced with a few challenges, the most pressing one being climate change as Pakistan is estimated to become a water-scarce country by 2040. The change in weather patterns has resulted in variance in temperatures, affecting growth. Over the years, the country has also been faced with shrinking arable land and water shortage. The Agricultural Transformation Plan Successive governments have tried their best to turn around the agriculture sector to enable it to play a significant role in the economy. Like previous governments, the current dispensation has also devised a comprehensive agriculture policy – the Agricultural Transformation Plan, which envisages boosting production of major crops like wheat, sugarcane, rice and oilseeds to ensure food security. The interventions being made under the action plan target the structural issues that lie at the core of the stagnating agricultural sector. The initiative has helped the sector start to realise its potential. Agricultural performance during 2020-21 The overall performance of the agriculture sector was 2.77% in the fiscal year 2020-21 against a growth target of 2.8%. Important crops, including wheat, rice, sugarcane, maize and cotton, grew by 4.65% during the period. Except for cotton, all other major crops recorded growth in both the area under cultivation as well as production during the fiscal year under review. The production of sugarcane increased by 22%, rice saw a surge of 13.6%, and a 7.4% increase was witnessed in maize production. Wheat reached record high levels of production at 27.293 million tonnes with a growth of 8.1%. On the downside, cotton production declined by 22% during the year. Achievements in 2020-21 Despite the challenges posed by the global Covid-19 pandemic, Pakistan has been advancing with the development of the agricultural sector. During the year, 22 ongoing projects were completed at a cost of Rs124 billion that have increased the arable land by 40,000 acres – especially in Balochistan. The focus on Balochistan stems from the fact that it is the largest province in terms of area and does not lack fertile land but suffers from water shortages. To overcome the doom of water scarcity, small dams and flood protection mechanisms have been put in place in the province, which is expected to result in rain harvesting of 0.21-million-acre feet of water. Apart from this, around 1,000 tube-wells have been recharged in the province. Moreover, a sum of Rs46 billion has been allocated for the construction of various dams, including recharge dams. Furthermore, Rs961 million have been planned to be spent on the restructuring of the agriculture sector. There has been a shift towards more inclusive growth by designing policies that focus on rural development-driven economic growth.