Institutional Assessment And Change Department Of Agriculture Government Of The Punjab Pakistan

The enactment of 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010 was followed by devo-lution of most of the functions of the erstwhile Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Live-stock (MINFAL) to the Provinces and the MINFAL was formally abolished on June 30, 2011. Instead, a new Ministry of National Food Security and Research was established1 for better execution of un-devolved functions as well as attaining and maintaining national food security. The functions assigned to the new Ministry are at Annex-1. This devolution of re-sponsibilities to provinces led to increased attention to agriculture2 with a common notion that there is a significant untapped potential for economic growth and employment creation associ-ated with productivity improvement of traditional crops and importantly diversification to-wards high-value and climate smart agriculture, including livestock, and post-harvest value addition. Unlocking this potential for all these components requires a transformative approach that would include major policy reforms, institutional changes, and a re-orientation of public resources away from wasteful subsidies to smart subsidies and productive public investments.

This report evaluates the outputs from the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) on national social accounting matrices (SAMs) and single-country computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. The study aims to identify what policies, programs, strategies, and expenditure decisions were informed by SAMs and single-country CGE models. The report seeks to document what decisions were made based on the contribution of SAM/CGE models’ outputs that effectively shaped policy work or what changes were made because of CGIAR PIM– supported economywide modeling being available to decision makers. Based on the above, the report makes recommendations for CGIAR PIM–supported single economywide modeling work on how to effectively increase decision makers’ use of SAM/CGE outputs.

Pakistan is vulnerable to climate change impacts. Like many developing countries, it is also facing the challenge of dealing with governance of climate change and restructuring associated institutions. It is estimated that the future cost of climate impact would be around $6 billion to $14 billion annually over the next 40 years. Ministry of Climate Change is now focusing in creating necessary infrastructure and platforms for policy decisions and implementation.

A team of scientists and researchers from the University of Agriculture Faisalabad and University of Arid Agriculture Rawalpindi, in collaboration with FAO and Government of Punjab (Agriculture Department) worked together to delineate the Agro-Ecological Zoning (AEZ) in Punjab. AEZ refers to the division of Punjab region into land resource mapping units, having a unique combination of landform, soil and climatic characteristics, and/or land cover. Based on the most up to date collected information on natural resources, climate and agricultural markets, AEZ reveals an enormous potential for crop diversification and productivity. And it is the need of the hour in a country where population is rapidly growing and where climate changes (increases in temperature, changes in rainfall pattern, extreme weather events) evidence the vulnerability of the current agricultural systems. From a side AEZ will help to make smallholder farming a profitable business and overall enhance agriculture efficiency. On the other side, policymakers will be able to use data of AEZ and associated information on land characteristics (soil quality, topography, agricultural land use, yeld etc) to formulate optimal policies for sustainable agricultural production.