Recent Trends in Adoption of Organic Farming in Pakistan: A Case Study

Abstract

Organic farming is not only a sustainable farming systems but also have a great potential to provide the world with healthy, high-quality food. However, several factors like low yield and increased production costs may halt the adoption of natural farming style. The current study was planned to investigate the adoption of organic farming and its profitable factors in Pakistan.  A survey was conducted in this perusal, where six different administrative units of Pakistan were considered. Interviews were conducted from 150 individuals per region using specifically developed questionnaire. Farmers were asked to respond regarding variables like education, farming land, organic market place, annual gross income (organic) etc. Descriptive statistics and regression modelling (linear) were applied to understand data trends and correlations. Nine out of 16 variables found significantly different among regions. The results depicted that farmers doing organic farming in peri urban areas like Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) spend more money in terms of irrigation, hence increasing investment loads in the region. However, opportunities of market access helped these farmers to gain increased annual income. The data reflected small land holing by organic farmers as most of them owned < 5 acres. This could be one of the important factors in adoption of organic farming in Pakistan. Only 44% of the farmers sold their products at premium prices, which indicates lack of specialized market structure dedicated to organic products. Therefore, it could be concluded from our results that markets should be developed in order to boost the adoption of organic farming.

Keywords: Organic farming, Premium price; Farmer Economy; Livelihood; Certified Farming