ESTIMATING YIELD POTENTIAL OF THE MAJOR CROPS AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR PAKISTANS CROPS SECTOR

This paper examines the yield potentials ofseven major crops/viz. wheat, cotton, rice, sugarcane, potato,maize and chickpea of Pakistan fo llowing the international agricultural expert .I opinion regarding the alarmingrates ofpopulation growth on the one hand and limits to the carrying capacity of the world agriculture, on theother. The aim is to investigate into the historical y ield potential of these crops using the data f rom 1990 to 2006and specifically report the crops that art! more susceptible and need immediate attention because of theirimportance to satisfy ever increasing demand offood and fibe r. Using nominal ratios of the maj or crop yieldsrelative to the world averages this pap er estimates and compares the historical trends of these crops. The resultsshow that, leaving seed cotton as an exception, no other crop has been compara ble to the world s average y ield somuch so that even the y ield ofcotton has been on a decline, recently. Seven crops ; wheat, cotton, rice, potato, maize,and chickpea have unproved yields while sugarcane has been stagnant over the last 18 years. Implications are: nomutter 1011 yie lding crops uf Pakistan raise concerns; they also provide a scope to improve y ields. Hence existinglower y ields could be positively addr essed to answer the question of limits to the carrying capacity in case ofPakistan.