Reports put Balochistan's share of farm loans between 1.1pc and 4.56pc

Agricultural lending in Pakistan is heavily concentrated in Punjab, according to two published reports, but the two outlets gave markedly different figures for Balochistan's share of the money.

Quetta Voice reported that Balochistan receives 4.56 per cent of agricultural loans while Punjab takes 84.52 per cent. In a separate report, Business Recorder put the figures for lending by Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited at 83.9 per cent for Punjab and 1.1 per cent for Balochistan.

Both reports agree on the central point: Punjab accounts for more than eight in every ten rupees of the agricultural credit described, and Balochistan for a small fraction. They differ on the size of that fraction, and the published headlines do not establish whether they are measuring the same thing.

Business Recorder's headline referred specifically to ZTBL loans, the state-run bank that is the main channel for subsidised farm credit. Quetta Voice's headline referred to agricultural loans generally, which in Pakistan would include lending by commercial banks and microfinance institutions as well as ZTBL. The full text of neither report was available, so the basis for the two sets of numbers could not be confirmed.

The reports did not say why the distribution is so uneven, and no statement from ZTBL, the State Bank of Pakistan or the provincial agriculture department appeared in the material available.

Punjab is Pakistan's largest agricultural province by output, with the bulk of the country's wheat, rice, cotton and sugarcane grown on its canal-irrigated land. Farming in Balochistan is concentrated in irrigated pockets around the canal commands and in upland orchards, with a large share of rural households dependent on livestock and on water drawn from tubewells and karezes.

Neither report gave the total volume of loans disbursed, the number of borrowers covered, or the period to which the figures relate. The share of lending going to small farmers, and the cost of borrowing, were also not specified in either account.

Access to formal farm credit has been a long-running subject of debate in Pakistan, where the agriculture sector employs a large share of the labour force but receives a comparatively small slice of bank lending overall.