Landholding in

Pakistan
Samran Adil
 LANDHOLDING IN PAKISTAN
Agricultural Census Organization (ACO) is the agricultural planners, researchers and academia in
particular by providing detailed information decennially on the structure of agriculture. This
organization has conducted six agricultural censuses since 1960 without any gap and provided very
useful data on agriculture.
The in-hand census report provides lot of latest information by size of farm and also by tenure about
the agriculture farms, farm fragmentation and land utilization.
Agricultural Census 2010 is the sixth in its series. This census was conducted in conjunction with
World Census of Agriculture 2010 (WCA 2010) Program laid down by the United Nations Food &
Agriculture Organization (FAO). As the following information and statistics will be based upon above
mentioned agricultural census.
FARMS AND FARM AREA
According to the estimates of Agricultural Census 2010, there were 8.26 million farms in the country.
These farms were operating an area of 52.91 million acres. The distribution of farm area among
small and large farms was highly skewed. Farms with less than 5 acres of land constituted 64 per
cent (5.35 million) of the total private farms but they operated only 19 per cent (10.18 million acres)
of the total farm area. Whereas, the farms that were of 25 acres and above in size, comprised only 4
per cent (0.30 million) of the total farms but they commanded 35 per cent (18.12 million acres) of
the total farm area. The average size of farm in the country was 6.4 acres whereas the cultivated
area per farm was 5.2 acres.

TENURE CLASSIFICATION OF FARMS AND FARM AREA

Privately managed farms were mostly cultivated by the owner cultivators (82 percent) followed by
tenants (11 per cent) and then by owner-cum-tenants (7 per cent). The area under possession of
owners was 39.43 million acres (75 per cent) owner-cum-tenants 7.58 million acres (14 per cent) and
tenants 5.89 million acres (11 per cent).

OWNER OPERATED AND TENANT OPERATED AREA

Census data indicate that owners and owner-cum-tenants operated an area of 39.43 million acres
and 3.10 million acres respectively, accounting for 42.53 million acres in total. Whereas, the
remaining 10.38 million acres were operated by tenants either on share cropping, lease or on
undefined terms of tenancy. In this way, 80 per cent of the total farm area was operated by owners
and 20 per cent by tenants. Majority of the tenant operated area (71 per cent) was cultivated on
terms of share cropping (7.31 million acres) followed by 26 per cent on leasing basis (2.71million
acres). Whereas, 0.36 million acres (3 per cent) of this area was reportedly being operated with
undefined terms of tenancy.
LAND FRAGMENTATION IN PAKISTAN
"According to the Pakistan-based NGO, Society for Conservation and Protection of The Environment
(SCOPE), about one-half (50.8%) of rural households in Pakistan are landless, while 5% of the
country’s population owns almost two-thirds (64 percent) of its farmland. (The World Bank found
that according to 2000 agricultural census 63.3% of rural households were landless. Of the
remaining 37% of rural households, 61% of these owned fewer than 5 acres, totaling 15% of total
land. Two percent of households owned 50 acres or more, accounting for 30 percent of total land
area.) Concentration of ownership is also thought to be less productive than owner farmed land.
According to the World Bank, "most empirical evidence indicates that land productivity on large
farms in Pakistan is lower than that of small farms, holding other factors constant." Small farmers
have "higher net returns per hectare" than large farms, according to farm household income data.
Sharecropper productivity is also lower (about 20%) than landowner productivity, holding other
factors constant, because there is less incentive for sharecroppers’ own-labor inputs.