Agricultural Land Expansion in Pakistan: An Empirical Analysis

The paper examines the long-run determinants of agricultural land expansion by JJ cointegration technique. The results of cointegration indicates that there exists a long-run relationship between agriculture land expansion and the factors like agricultural prices, agricultural income, live stock population, human population, agricultural technology, fertilizer use, irrigation and rainfall. The normalized cointegrating vector shows that the agricultural prices, fertilizer use, irrigation and technology positively affect agricultural land expansion, while, human population, agricultural income and rainfall negatively influence agricultural land expansion. It is also found that livestock population has insignificant impact on the agricultural land expansion. The study proposed to agriculture policy makers to increase the use of technology and irrigational infrastructure along with adjusted agricultural prices to expand the agricultural land for agricultural growth.