Cambridge O Level Pakistan Studies: Agricultural Development (2059)

Agricultural development is Section 4 of Paper 2 in Cambridge O Level Pakistan Studies 2059, and the section with the most named crops, places and methods to learn. It covers farming as a system, where Pakistan’s crops and livestock are found, the natural and human factors behind production, the main irrigation methods, waterlogging and salinity, and what government has done to raise output. Strong answers tie each crop to a district, a season and a reason.

Why does agriculture matter so much in Pakistan?

Farming still produced roughly a quarter of Pakistan’s GDP and employed well over a third of its workers in the early 2020s, according to the Pakistan Economic Survey and the Labour Force Survey. It supplies raw materials for textiles and sugar (Section 5) and major exports such as rice and cotton goods (Section 6). It is also the largest user of the water studied in Section 2, so almost any Paper 2 question can bring agriculture in.

Syllabus coverage

CAMBRIDGE O LEVEL PAKISTAN STUDIES 2059, 2026 — PAPER 2, SECTION 4: AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

• 4(a) Agricultural systems: small-scale subsistence, cash crop and livestock farming as systems of inputs, processes and outputs
• 4(b) Crops and livestock: map the main areas of cotton, rice, sugar cane and wheat, and of buffalo, cattle, goats, sheep and poultry; recognise each from photographs; state crop uses and livestock products; locate apples, apricots, bananas, dates, maize, mangoes, millet, oilseeds, oranges, pulses, tobacco and vegetables, why they grow there and one use of each
• 4(c) Factors affecting production: natural factors (topography, climate for kharif and rabi crops, soils, pests and diseases) and human factors (capital, labour, size of holdings, farming practices, irrigation, waterlogging and salinity, government action); traditional rice on small fragmented holdings, barani wheat, and karez oasis farming; cotton, rice and sugar cane (kharif) and wheat (rabi) as cash crops; livestock on small farms and nomadic or semi-nomadic herding, including transhumance; karez, inundation and perennial canals, Persian wheel and tubewell, and the roles of dams, barrages, link canals, distribution canals, field channels and bunds; causes, restoration and prevention of waterlogging and salinity; land reforms, training, machinery, chemicals and improved seeds; possibilities, problems and sustainability

How does a farm work as a system?

Think of every farm type as a flow diagram.

System	Typical inputs	Processes	Outputs
Subsistence (e.g. a 3-acre plot in a Sindh rice village)	Family labour, oxen, saved seed, canal water	Ploughing, transplanting, weeding, hand harvesting	Rice and vegetables eaten by the family; a small surplus sold
Cash crop (e.g. a cotton farm near Vehari)	Hired labour, tractor, certified seed, fertiliser, pesticide, tubewell water, bank loan	Machine sowing, spraying, picking	Seed cotton sold to a ginning factory; profit reinvested
Livestock (e.g. a buffalo dairy near Lahore)	Fodder (berseem, maize), concentrates, vet services	Feeding, milking, breeding	Milk, calves, dung for fuel and fertiliser

A good answer shows feedback: profit or failure in one season changes the inputs of the next.

Where are the main crops and animals?

Crop or animal	Main areas (examples)	Use or product
Cotton	Bahawalnagar, Vehari, Khanewal, Rahim Yar Khan; Sanghar and Nawabshah in Sindh	Lint for yarn and cloth; cottonseed oil and cattle cake
Rice	Kallar tract (Sheikhupura, Narowal, Hafizabad) for basmati; Larkana and Jacobabad in Sindh; Naseerabad in Balochistan	Food; major export; husk as fuel
Sugar cane	Rahim Yar Khan, Faisalabad, Jhang; Badin and Thatta; Mardan and Charsadda	Sugar, gur, molasses for ethanol; bagasse for fuel and paper
Wheat	Irrigated plains across Punjab and Sindh; barani land in Attock, Chakwal and Jhelum	Flour for roti, the staple food; straw (bhusa) as fodder
Buffalo	Irrigated Punjab and Sindh (Nili-Ravi and Kundi breeds)	Milk, ghee, meat, hides
Cattle	Punjab and Sindh (Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, Cholistani breeds)	Milk, draught power, beef, leather
Goats and sheep	Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa uplands, Thar and Cholistan	Meat, wool, skins, milk
Poultry	Commercial sheds near Lahore, Rawalpindi, Karachi and Abbottabad	Eggs and broiler meat

Other crops to locate, with one reason and one use: apples in Quetta, Kalat and Swat (cold winters for dormancy; eaten fresh); apricots in Hunza and Skardu (sunny, dry summers; dried for sale); bananas around Thatta and Hyderabad (hot, humid, irrigated); dates in Khairpur and the Turbat and Panjgur oases (great heat, low humidity at ripening; food and sweets); maize in Mardan, Swat and the Peshawar valley (monsoon rain or irrigation; food and poultry feed); mangoes in Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and Mirpur Khas (hot summers; fresh fruit and export); millet in the sandy Thal and Thar margins (drought-tolerant; grain and fodder); oilseeds such as sunflower, rapeseed and mustard on the plains (cooking oil); oranges (kinnow) around Sargodha and Toba Tek Singh (mild winters, irrigation; fresh fruit and export); pulses such as gram in the Thal (little water needed; protein food); tobacco around Mardan and Swabi (fertile, well-drained soils; cigarettes); vegetables close to big cities (perishable, so grown near markets).

How do kharif and rabi seasons shape production?

Kharif crops are sown in spring or early summer and harvested in autumn: cotton, rice, sugar cane, maize and millet. They need heat and plenty of water from canals and the monsoon. Rabi crops are sown in October to December and harvested from March to May: wheat, gram, oilseeds. They grow in mild winter temperatures and rely on canal water, tubewells or winter rain from western depressions. Cotton picking and wheat sowing overlap in November, which is why cotton-wheat farmers face a labour squeeze.

How do natural and human factors affect the three named subsistence systems?

Traditional rice on small, fragmented holdings. Seedlings raised in a nursery are transplanted by hand into puddled, flooded fields, then harvested with sickles and threshed by beating or by animals. Clay soils hold water well, but plots split by inheritance are too small and scattered for machines, family labour is cheap but slow, and lack of capital limits fertiliser and pest control.

Barani wheat on the Potwar Plateau. Wheat depends on winter rain, which varies year to year. Gullied land and thin soils reduce yields, and farmers rarely risk buying fertiliser. Small dams and water-harvesting ponds help.

Dates and vegetables under karez irrigation. In oases such as those of Balochistan, a karez carries groundwater from the foot of the hills through an underground tunnel by gravity, losing little to evaporation. Dates tolerate heat and some salinity, while vegetables are grown in their shade. Maintenance is labour-intensive, and nearby tubewells lower the water table so many karez have dried up.

Livestock. On small farms, buffalo and cattle are stall-fed on fodder and crop waste. In Balochistan and the northern mountains, sheep and goats are herded by nomads or by transhumance: herders move flocks up to high summer pastures and back down to valleys or the plains in winter. In Cholistan, herders move between rain-fed ponds (tobas) and canal areas as water dries up.

Which irrigation methods are used, and what are their trade-offs?

Method	How it works	Advantages	Disadvantages
Inundation canal	Fills only when river is in flood	Cheap; no barrage needed	Summer only; unreliable
Perennial canal	Fed all year from a barrage	Year-round water for two crops	Seepage, waterlogging, costly upkeep
Karez	Gravity tunnel from hill aquifer	No fuel; little evaporation	Labour to clean; dries if water table falls
Persian wheel	Animal turns chain of buckets from a well	Cheap, simple	Small area; ties up animals
Tubewell	Electric, diesel or solar pump	Water on demand; lowers water table	Fuel cost; over-pumping; brackish water in places

The system from river to field: dams store water (Tarbela, Mangla); barrages raise the river level and divert water into canals (for example Sukkur, Guddu, Taunsa); link canals move water from western rivers to eastern ones after the Indus Waters Treaty; distribution canals and watercourses carry it on; field channels and bunds (earth ridges) hold it on each plot.

What causes waterlogging and salinity, and what can be done?

Seepage from unlined canals and watercourses, over-irrigation and poor drainage raise the water table. In hot weather capillary action draws water up and evaporation leaves salt crusts. Yields fall and land can be abandoned. Restoring land: Salinity Control and Reclamation Projects (SCARPs), begun in the 1960s, sank tubewells to pump down the water table; surface and tile drains such as the Left Bank Outfall Drain in Sindh carry saline water to the sea; fields are flushed and gypsum is added to sodic soil. Prevention: lining watercourses, laser land levelling, measured water allocation, and sprinkler or drip irrigation.

How has government tried to raise production?

Land reforms in 1959, 1972 and 1977 lowered the ceiling on how much land one owner could hold and aimed to give tenants security, though much land stayed with large owners. Government has also spread high-yielding seeds (the Green Revolution wheat of the 1960s), research at institutes such as the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute in Faisalabad, extension training, credit through the Zarai Taraqiati Bank, and subsidies for fertiliser, tractors and solar tubewells. Evaluate: yields rose, but benefits went mainly to larger farmers, chemical use raised costs and polluted water, and tubewell expansion has drawn groundwater down.

Is Pakistan’s farming sustainable?

Possibilities: high-value fruit and vegetables for export, better water use, livestock and dairy growth, crop insurance. Problems: water shortage, heat waves and floods such as those of 2022, small holdings, debt, and falling groundwater. A sustainable answer weighs output now against soil and water for the future.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a kharif and a rabi crop? Kharif crops such as cotton and rice are sown in summer and harvested in autumn. Rabi crops such as wheat and gram are sown in winter and harvested in spring.

What is a barani area? Land that depends on rainfall rather than irrigation, such as much of the Potwar Plateau, where wheat yields rise and fall with winter rain.

Why have many karez dried up? Tubewells pumping nearby have lowered the water table below the karez tunnel, and fewer people are available to clean the channels.

What is transhumance? The seasonal movement of herders and livestock between high summer pastures and lower winter grazing, as practised in the mountains of northern Pakistan and Balochistan.

Related resources

• Agricultural Development revision notes
• Agricultural Development practice questions
• Natural Resources study guide
• Power study guide

Official syllabus

Cambridge Assessment International Education, Cambridge O Level Pakistan Studies 2059 syllabus for examination in 2026, Paper 2 Section 4 Agricultural development: https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/697282-2026-syllabus.pdf (checked 2026-11-08). Shares of GDP and employment are approximate; see the latest Pakistan Economic Survey.