The Punjab government wants to bring artificial intelligence into the daily lives of farmers, with the provincial leadership working to use data and technology to help farmers forecast yields and productivity.
Parliamentary Secretary Usama Leghari said the government aims to lay the foundation for farmers to access AI during the remaining two and a half years of its tenure.
Speaking as chief guest at the Pakistan Agricultural Coalition’s Agri Connections Conference and Expo at the Lahore Expo Center on Thursday, Leghari said the government believes in a data and technological revolution in agriculture.
“I hope that during the remaining two and a half years of our tenure, we will successfully lay the foundation through which our farmers will have access to AI and will be able to forecast their yields and productivity,” said Usama.
He added that the government has declared this the “Year of the Value Chain” and is encouraging the corporate sector to work with farmers and add value to their products so that farmers receive a greater share while businesses also earn profits.
Advisor to the Federal Finance Minister Adnan Pasha said Pakistan faces two major long-term challenges beyond traditional security issues: climate change and population growth. He said the two are closely linked to food security, water security and wider social challenges.
Pasha said Pakistan’s population could reach 370 million to 390 million over the next two decades, creating both risks and opportunities. He said agricultural transformation cannot be financed through the public sector balance sheet alone and called for public-private partnerships in which the government provides the ecosystem and a risk-sharing framework.
He said the World Bank’s new country partnership framework with Pakistan includes a focus on the agriculture and climate nexus, linking climate resilience, water, agriculture, and food and nutrition security with private sector investment.
Pasha said this could create investable pipelines and projects rather than isolated initiatives. He identified certified climate-resilient seeds as one area requiring private investment in multiplication, processing, testing and distribution of seeds suited to heat, drought, floods and disease.
He also said Pakistan needs to improve on-farm water management and water-saving agronomy because sustainable food security cannot be achieved by treating water as an unlimited input.
Pakistan Agricultural Coalition Chief Executive Kazim Saeed said the conference, held in partnership with Punjab’s agriculture department, provides a platform to explore ways to accelerate agricultural development amid changing global trade dynamics, shifting alliances and changing capital flows.
Saeed said Pakistan’s agriculture sector needs leadership, noting that the country is importing commodities it has produced for centuries, including wheat, cotton and lentils. He said exports remain below their potential due partly to low competitiveness and food safety concerns.
At a session held in partnership with the World Bank on food security amid changing trade dynamics, Olivier Durand, lead agriculture specialist at the World Bank, said Pakistan’s agricultural production is highly fragmented, with many small farmers having limited connections to markets, processors and off-takers.
Durand said limited market access for small farmers is a major issue for trade and food security. He also noted that while wheat and wheat flour remain widely accessible, around 60 percent of Pakistan’s population faces difficulty affording a healthy diet.
He said Pakistan has doubled agricultural production over the past 30 years and caught up with some middle-income countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Morocco and Egypt, but remains far behind other middle-income countries in terms of fruit and vegetable production.
Siham Jabrane of OCP Morocco presented on how input markets affect food security, while Syngenta Pakistan also made a presentation. A separate session on deregulating agricultural supply chains was held in partnership with the International Finance Corporation.
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