Analyzing the Causes of Water Shortage, Low Crop Yield, and Food Crisis in Pakistan: A Longitudinal Analysis (1991-2019)

Pakistan has been facing problem of low crop yield, food shortage, and high prices of food items, and it has to import food items for billions of dollars every year to meet domestic needs. The literature shows a sufficient gap to investigate the causes of low crop yield. This motivates the authors to investigate the causes of water shortage, low crop yields, and high prices of agriculture inputs, using 28 years of data spanning from 1991 to 2019. The selected variables include crop yield as the dependent variable and water availability, precipitation, seed, fertilizer, and pesticides as independent variables. Various statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics, Correlation matrix, ADF test, ARDL Model, Bound test, and Error Correction model were employed to determine the relationship between variables. The findings reveal that all independent variables except precipitation have a positive association with crop yield. The comparison of the results of ARDL and ECM Models shows that the variables water, seed, fertilizer, and pesticides have a significant and positive relationship with crop yield in the short run rather than in the long run. In light of these findings, the study suggests that the Government of Pakistan should build water storage, ensure the availability of agriculture inputs at subsided prices, and introduce modern agriculture technologies to enhance crop yield to ensure food security and save billions of dollars being spent on the import of food items every year.