Cultivator Market Responsiveness in Pakistan—Cereal and Cash Crops

Abstract

In an attempt to identify the effect of various economic, social and political factors on the degree of market responsiveness displayed by cultivators of both food and cash crops, estimates of the supply elasticities of several crops were made. The analysis employed a Nerlove-type supply model [5], which has been widely applied in recent years to the production of a considerable number of crops. Most of the earlier studies have been aggregate in nature, but, given the motivation of the present effort, such an approach was not appropriate. Pakistan displays a profile made up of a wide variety of climatological, topographical, and even sociological circumstances ranging from the littoral districts near Karachi to the mountains above Peshawar, and our basic intention was to high¬light any inter-regional rural differences. Thus the supply model was applied not only to national output, but also to that of the divisions and districts and the results are reported herein.