Reasons of Agriculture Land Conversion into Non-Agriculture Activities: A Case of Rural Area of District Peshawar

Abstract

Nowadays, most agricultural land is converted into non-agriculture activities in the district of Peshawar, which has caused a food crisis for future generations. Seeing its importance, the present study was carried out in 2024 in the district of Peshawar. The primary objective is to discover why agricultural land is converted into non-agriculture activities in the study area. District Peshawar consists of four towns. One village in each town was randomly selected, namely Qazi Killi, Tarnab, Palosi Maghdazi, and Musa Zai. The total number of respondents was 10496 in the four villages. Yamani formula was used, and the sample size was fixed to 385. Then, through the allocation proportion method, 385 respondents were distributed among the selected villages. Data were collected from the respondents through a questionnaire schedule, and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. The result revealed that urbanization, low per-acre productivity, unemployment, availability of fewer facilities on the agriculture farm, less security, no awareness of the crisis of food in the future, population pressure and hereditary division are the reasons for agriculture land conversion into non-agriculture activities while above ninety per cent respondents claimed the mentioned reasons for agriculture land conversion to non-agriculture activities.  Based on problems, the study recommends that the government should provide facilities to rural farmers in the village to enhance per acre agriculture productivity; rural industries should be developed for the generation of employment; strict rules should be applied for controlling agricultural land conversion into non-agriculture activities by the government; awareness should be given about future food crisis to the community of the study area.