Importance of farm mechanisation

Should we fear farm mechanisation and technical innovations? While there is widespread consensus that the use of machines is essential to increasing agricultural productivity, many people in Pakistan are concerned that it may reduce labour demand in the agriculture sector, rendering workers — especially unskilled ones — redundant, which may lead to higher unemployment in rural areas along with a widening income disparity. This is particularly worrisome given that the agriculture sector still employs 37.5 per cent of the country’s total labour force as per Pakistan’s Labour Force Survey 2020–21. Worldwide, the same arguments were advanced in the past when steam engines, electricity, and tractors became key components of industrial and agricultural production. However, every time, the industrial and agricultural sectors ended up using more workers with relatively higher wages. In fact, these technologies proved to be skill-demanding rather than deskilling. Once adopted, they enhanced the overall production volume and ultimately generated new demands for jobs and skills in different sectors. In the past, mechanisation was driven by industrial development, technological advancements, and socio-economic changes. However, climate change — with its increasingly expanding sphere of negative influence on the agriculture sector of Pakistan — has become a new driver of farm mechanisation to be reckoned with.