Farm Mechanization: Historical Developments, Present Status and Future Trends in Pakistan

Total cropped area of Pakistan is 27.48 million hectares which is 34.4 percent of total land area. Annual population growth rate of Pakistan is around 1.5 %. Current population of Pakistan is about 199 million and this makes Pakistan the 6th most populous country in the world. Rapid urbanization due to increasing population has reduced the cultivable land in the country. Limited land, increasing population, high cost of crop production and rising demand for food are key challenges for the agriculture sector in Pakistan. This situation has forced government to pay serious attention upon modern agriculture based on mechanized farming. Seed bed preparation, wheat and paddy harvesting and pesticide application have attained reasonable level of mechanization, while use of machines for remaining field operations is quite limited. Beside established potential of mechanized nursery transplanting, this is still done manually. Cattle farming, fish pond farming and postharvest processing of fruit and vegetable are emerging businesses and are important prospective areas for mechanization. Current level of farm power availability is 0.52 hp/ac (1.29 hp/ha) while over five hundred small and medium sized manufacturers are working in Pakistan with key issue of low quality and lack of standardization. This aspect indicates great potential for joint venture of Pakistani manufacturers with high-tech international manufacturers to produce good quality farm machine at Pakistan for domestic and international market with competitive prices.