Climate Smart Agriculture Investment Plans for the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

GIZ developed Climate Smart Agriculture Investment Plan for Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to support Pakistan’s agriculture sector to combat the impact of adverse climate change

Pakistan is the 5th most populous country, with a predominantly rural population . Agriculture is the 2nd sector in terms of economic importance, contributing 19.2% to GDP, and the largest employer. Smallholders dominate the sector, with 90.8% of farms in Punjab and in KP being smaller than 5ha. Wheat, rice, cotton, maize, and sugarcane are the five main food and cash crops, covering 50% of the total harvested area in Pakistan.

Punjab contributes more than half of their production, while KP is a major producer of other important commodities including tobacco and barley. Livestock is the largest agriculture subsector, contributing 60.1% to GDP, and an important economic activity for smallholders in both provinces. Pakistan’s climate is mostly semi-arid to arid, with great regional variation. Punjab hosts fertile agriculture plains fed by the Indus Basin Irrigation System, and experiences wide temperature variations between summer and winter.

Temperatures in Pakistan have increased by 0.6C in the past century, and by 2080 are projected to increase between 2C and 4.1C depending on the emissions scenario, with higher temperature increases in the north. Precipitation trends in Pakistan are uncertain and vary across the country. Though an overall increase in annual precipitation of up to 9mm is projected by 2080, Punjab will experience decreases in precipitation until 2050, and KP’s precipitation levels will remain relatively unchanged. Pakistan ranks 8th among the most affected countries by extreme weather events between 2000-2019.

Water availability per capita is expected to decline, limiting the water resources for agriculture GoP & PDD, Yields of wheat, rice, and maize will be negatively impacted by climate change across most regions of Pakistan.

Nine climate-smart agriculture (CSA) investment opportunities (IO) for Punjab and twelve for KP were prioritised after a thorough review of the data sources available and engaging with key stakeholders from the two provinces. In order to connect the investment packages with already-existing programmes and prevent duplication, the CSA investment possibilities were found by mining the available data on climate hazards and priority interventions at the national, provincial, and district levels. Key stakeholder interviews were used to further assess and improve the CSA investment packages. Nine CSA investment options for Punjab and twelve for KP were produced as a consequence of this iterative approach, with projects ranging from institutional capacity building to scaling up CSA interventions at the farm level. Each investment package’s climate smartness (a composite of adaptation, mitigation, and productivity scores), investment risk, and scaling potential were determined through a prioritisation process with provincial experts from government, academia, and the private sector. These findings assisted in choosing two investment packages and two research packages for in-depth analysis. They also provided information on the investment goals of pertinent businesses. The two chosen investment packages aim to create finance mechanisms through public-private partnerships for scaling on better technologies, for which complete cost-benefit analyses were carried out. The two research packages, for which only the costs were calculated, are concentrated on the development of knowledge products to support upcoming provincial programming. Deep dive analyses, which comprised a thorough needs analysis, recommended activities, and the main institutions to be involved, were created for the four packages.

The Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) plans were produced by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, with the support of the German Federal Government through GIZ Pakistan’s “Strengthening Climate Adaptation and Resilience (SAR)” Project. The Ministry of Planning Development & Special Initiatives of the Government of Pakistan was the national partner for the project. Other technical partners included the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), who conducted a series of climate modelling activities for the development of a “Climate Risk Profile for Pakistan”.

Link to further materials

Contact person
Dr. Muhammad Abid — Senior Advisor Adaptation to Climate Change
Strengthening Climate Adaptation and Resilience – GIZ/SAR

Key buzzwords
Climate change, Climate Adaptation, Climate Mitigation, Food Security, Resilience