Agro-Technological Innovation and Cultivable Waste as Drivers of Agricultural Value Added: Empirical Evidence from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

Background: Technological innovation and efficient land use are important to improve agricultural productivity in agrarian based economies. However, the precise impact of agro-technological innovation and cultivable waste on agricultural performance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has not yet been specified.

Objective: This study explored the effects of agro-technological innovation and cultivable waste on agricultural output in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Methodology: The data for this study are annual time series from 2005 to 2022, and the model is a vector autoregressive (VAR) model that captures the dynamic interrelationships among the variables. The augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test was used to test stationarity, and variance decomposition and Granger causality were applied to reveal directional correlations. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model was used to conduct robustness tests for mixed orders of integration.

Results: Technological innovation had a positive and statistically significant effect on agricultural production. In contrast, cultivable waste is inversely or strongly linked to agricultural outcomes, but has an indirect effect on technological innovation, indicating that agricultural output is relatively persistent, primarily because of lagged values. The results of the Granger causality also support the existence of a bidirectional relationship between innovation and output, implying a feedback mechanism.

Conclusion: Technological innovation is a backbone factor that contributing to agricultural development in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. To sustainably increase productivity, technology must be adopted more quickly, which implies spending more on and using the infrastructure more efficiently.