Pakistan`s agricultural crisis is generally framed around water scarcity, rising input costs, declining productivity and profitability and climate change. Yet another structural problem the subdivision of agricultural land into smaller and scattered holdings is worsening silently.

Despite implications for farm efficiency, rural incomes and national poverty, the issue has received far less attention.

The seventh Agricultural Census released in July has come up with figures that must ring alarm bells. The number of farms has increased from 8.26 million in 2010 to 11.10m in 2024 a rise of 34.4 per cent. Over the same period, average farm size feII from 6.4 acres to 5.3 acres, a decline of 17.2pc.

Even more significant is the number of fragmented farms, which rose from 2.83m in 2010 to 4.98m in 2024 an increase of 2.15m, or more than 76pc.

The average division of separate plots held by each fragmented farm increased from three in 2010 to seven in 2024 an increase of more than 133pc.

The general distribution of landholdings reinforces the picture. In 2024, 59pc farms were smaller than 2.5 acres, compared with 43.5pc in 2010.

The proportion of farms below five acres rose from 64.7pc to 78pc, while more than 95pc are under 12.5 acres, up from 89.5pc in 2010.

This skewed structure has implications for all; individual farms, sectoral performance and policy makers. For farms, smaller and increasingly dispersed holdings make mechanisation next to impossible, raise cultivation and supervision costs, limit access to credit and modern technologies, and reduce farmers` capacity to generate marketable surpluses and cash for themselves.

At the sectoral level, it risks slowingproductivity, weakening commercial agriculture and increasing rural poverty as families turn to off-farm employment to supplement their incomes.

The policy implications are equally significant: improving agricultural performance requires more than addressing water scarcity and input costs. It demands initiatives to help smallholders overcome the disadvantages of scale, shared machinery services, equipment suited to small plots, accessible agricultural credit, cooperative farming arrangements, zoning and cluster development and incentivising voluntary land consolidation.

For many smallholders, farming is consequently becoming less of a commercial enterprise than a means of meeting household subsistence needs. Muhammad Nadeem, a threeacre farmer from Okara, describes the transition: `When a plot falls below a certain size, subsistence farming and traditional rural practices growing one`s own staple and fodder for livestock take precedence.

Nadeem owns three buffaloes and divides his land between fodder, wheat and vegetables to meet his family`s basic needs. As the land is ancestral, he shares a return with his brother and sister. Farming is now a part-time activity: Nadeem and his brother work as labourers in Okara city, while his sister teaches at a local private school.

`The land generates virtually no income because the yields are barely enough to meet our needs,` he says. It is also because of expensive fertilisers. Credit is another obstacle. Even local middlemen, who typically finance inputs, are reluctant to lend as they know the limitations of the family`s landholding. `For us, farming is no longer a viable source of income. We continue to cultivate only for it providesa staple for family and fodder for animals.

Nadeem`s experience shows how shrinking holdings can turn farming into a part-time survival activity, forcing families to seek off-farm employment while leaving no money for agricultural investment.

The challenge becomes greater when land is divided into scattered, non-contiguous plots. Five consolidated acres at one location are very different from the same size spread across several parcels. Dispersed holdings increase the time and cost of land preparation, irrigation, crop protection and harvesting. They also complicate supervision, delay essential operations and make machinery less efficient to deploy.

Former irrigation minister and south Punjab farmer, Mohsin Leghari, is deeply concerned about this trend.

`Five acres in one place and five scattered across several locations are two completely different propositions. The latter increases cultivation costs, complicates mechanisation, makes supervision difficult, and delays critical farming operations,` he says. The shrinking average holdings could accelerate poverty and urban migration.

Mechanisation presents a particular challenge with multiplying division of land. While machinery can reduce labour requirements, improve efficiency and help farmers complete time-sensitive operations, the high cost of purchase and maintenance is difficult to recover from smaller acreage, especially if scattered across different locations.

Agricultural economist Mirza Irfan Baig argues that this problem extends beyond affordability. `For small farms, mechanisation is not simply a question of affordability or commercial viability; it is also a question of whether appropriate machinery is available in the first place,` he says.

Baig explains that modern agricultural mechanisation largely evolved to serve large-scale farming, particularly in the West, where extensive, contiguous holdings allow machinery to operate efficiently across large areas.

`Such machinery is not scale-neutral. Equipment designed for large, consolidated farms cannot be used efficiently on small, scattered plots. Its size, operating costs and capacity are not suited to smallholders. There is little incentive for manufacturers to develop specialised machinery for such a limited and fragmented market.

This creates a structural barrier to modernisation. Even if money is available, farmers may not find machines suited to their holdings.

Buying large equipment individually is often uneconomical, while the lackof affordable, appropriately sized alternatives limits mechanisation and productivity.

Addressing the problem does not necessarily mean the disappearance of small farms or the forced consolidation. Shared services, equipment rental markets, cooperative arrangements, zoning and clustering of land, and better coordination among farmers could help them acquire efficiencies of larger operations. Improved access to credit and technologies designed for small plots would also be essential.

The policy makers now need to look beyond cultivated area and the immediate pressures of water scarcity, input costs and climate change, and deal with this structural issue. It is also necessary because subdivision of agricultural land is not merely a farming problem; it is also a question of rural livelihoods and national poverty. If millions of farmers struggle to earn a viable income from land, the consequences extend from rural dwellings to national poverty. •