China transforming agriculture industry in Pakistan.

Byline: Muhammad Zamir Assadi

Formation of regional and global strategic movements around the world in the present century has led to geo-strategic and geo-economic partnerships among countries. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is one of the best examples of such partnerships that has provided multiple and tremendous benefits to both sides, especially Pakistan in various sectors.

Pakistan's agriculture sector remained crucial for the country's economic development, so China under the CPEC is revitalizing the country's agriculture sector and combating the challenge of food insecurity.

China has also recently unveiled its 'No. 1 central document' for 2023, outlining nine tasks in comprehensively promoting rural revitalization this year. The policy initiative indicates another opening for Pakistan to collaborate with China for agriculture promotion which has a huge potential. Pakistan, basically an agri-based country, can massively turn around its economy through collaboration with China.

Under the Pak-China cooperation, the Pakistan-China space and agricultural cooperation hit a new milestone last year, after the Chinese authorities sent seven varieties of Pakistani seeds to a space station for six months before returning them to the South Asian country to facilitate a major food security experiment.

This initiative shows that China's space program is open for cooperation with any country while on the other side China has extended full-fledged support to Pakistan for modernizing the agriculture sector.

Agriculture sector has emerged as a direct as well as indirect beneficiary of CPEC via development in backward and forward linkages. Agriculture has been the backbone of low-income economies. It is generally the primary source of income and employment in rural areas. Agriculture sector of Pakistan has continuously been facing downfall during the last one decade.

The CPEC Long-Term Plan (LTP) envisages significant development of the agriculture sector of Pakistan that has a huge potential for enhancing its agriculture exports to the international community. Under this plan, there is a focus on increasing the use of modern machinery and synthetic fertilizers to enhance the yields, while food storage and processing zones would be constructed to reduce significant post-harvest losses.

Similarly, the building of cold storage stations and meat processing plants is also being planned to enhance productivity of livestock and fisheries sectors...