November 12, 2001	Monday	Shaba’an 25, 1422

PAKISTAN is faced with an acute shortage of irrigation water and reports about water availability are extremely disturbing.

A 51 per cent shortage has been already assessed. The water requirement for the Rabi crop is around 36.4 million acre-feet against a reserve stock of 18.73 maf as estimated by the IRSA. About half of the agricultural land has brackish water. Some estimates suggest that the underground water resources can provide irrigation water equivalent to 3 times the quantity of the water that would become available from Kalabagh Dam, if and when built.

The immediate scenario that emerges suggests that the way out to tackle the problem of shortage of water is conservation agriculture as well as the new technology which can help amend brackish water and make it suitable for irrigation. New technologies such as laster levelling, zero tillage and bed and furrow plantation techniques have been effectively demonstrated, particularly by the on-farm water management wing of the agricultural department, Punjab, to farmers. Farmers are progressively using these technologies to obtain higher yields.

The use of brackish water for irrigation purposes, however, till recently was not possible, although about 50 per cent of our the agricultural landmass could have become highly productive if suitable technology for the amendment of brackish tubewell water was available.

The agriculture sector can, however, heave a singh of relief. A new technology is now available, with the application of which any quality of brackish water can be amended and made suitable for irrigation. In a very short period of time, efficacy of this technology known as, RISTECH Biotechnology has been established.

Experts and specialists of the Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI), the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) Islamabad, On-Farm Water Management (OFWF), Punjab and Directorate of Soil Fertility and Water Testing (DSFWT) closely monitored the application of RISTECH through its specific packages. It was confirmed that RISTECH provides complete and comprehensive solution for the reclamation of salt affected soils as well as amendment of brackish water. The results are proven within one cropping season.

Amendment: Pakistan’s agriculture depends heavily only irrigation, which covers 79 per cent of the total cropped area of over 51 million acres. Irrigated agriculture in turn is by far the dominant user of available water supply, accounting for 98 per cent of direct flows and the bulk of re-flows.

Pakistan’s irrigation system is the largest integrated irrigation network in the world. This vast network of irrigation system needs to be complemented with a surface drainage system comparable in size. The system draws an average of 106 maf surface water each year for irrigation, supplemented by an annual ground water pumpage of some 43 maf. The average depth of water available at the farm level is 3.07 feet per acre.

The Indus basin has flat topography, porous soils in about 75 per cent cases and semi arid climate in the irrigated plants with high evaporation. In such an environment, irrigation without proper drainage, has lead to rising water table and high salinity. The application of underground water laden with salts has deteriorated the situation even more. At present it is estimated that about one ton of salts per acre is being added with irrigation every year to the agricultural land in Pakistan. As a result even the best productive agricultural lands have as high a pH level as 8.2.

Pakistan has been implementing, since 1960, an ambitious programme of salinity control and reclamation projects. Unlike the irrigation network the drainage network, by sharp contrast, is not interconnected. Much of the drainage effluent is either retained in the IBIS or disposed into the rivers and canals. The drainage solutions, which Pakistan has so far applied to the problem, have been slow to stem the rising tied of water logging and salinity.

As a result loss of the agricultural land to water logging and salinity has reported been on the rise. The impact of salinity on agricultural productivity is severe: a 25 per cent reduction in the production of major crop is attributed, to soil salinity/sodicity. The salinity levels increase rapidly as extraction of irrigation supplies increase in the lower Indus. In addition to distributing river-supplied salts, additional salts are mobilized directly on to the surface and retained in fresh ground water areas due to tubewell irrigation. There is consensus that lack of an effective drainage system is by far the main threat to the sustainability of agriculture in Indus basin. The policy makers have been looking at the following options:

(i) to dispose the drainage effluent outside of IBIS

(ii) to minimize the drainage effluent by changing the chemistry of drain water

(iii) reduce the volume of drainable surplus through source control.

The agricultural lands, which are irrigated with brackish tubewell water, develop hardpan/low permeability and accumulate salts. As a result the earthworms essential for the aeration of the soils and activation of nutrient’s needed for healthy growth of crops cannot survive in conditions of hard crust, or “HARDPAN” and high level of salinity. Hence the agricultural lands are rendered non-productive.

Water conditioner: An organic catalytic compound has been developed to disintegrate the hard crust as well as improve soil permeability through biological activity, resulting in needed aeration for gaseous exchange in soils. It, thus, facilitates proper germination and vigorous root and shoot growth of crops. The RISTECH ‘water conditioner’, reacts with saline sodic salts and changes them either into fertilizers or into simpler ionic form. The splitbivalent ions are consumed by the crops as nutrients. Some monovalent ions react with each other to form molecules in the presence of the this water conditioner. The gaseous molecules while escaping into the atmosphere enhance soil porosity.

The sodic salts are responsible for clay binding in nature. Even in such soils the use of RISTECH WATER CONDITIONER breaks down the salts and releases the clay binding of soils making such soils porous and fertile. This conditioner cleans the external surface of salt impregnated clay particles, exposing them to the root hair. The water retaining capacity of soils increases.

Hence the use of this water conditioner reduces the salinity of brackish water and improves the fertility of agricultural lands.

Fortunately, the available technology offers solution for the treatment of drainage effluents as well as saline/brackish tubewell water to make it suitable for irrigation. Now there is no need to spend billions of rupees on constructing drainage network for the disposal of drainage effluent into the Arabian Sea. The RISTECH technology has made it possible to treat the drainage effluent at a local level. With the use of this technology, the drainage effluent is treated directly at the farm level and supplied to farmers for irrigation.

The cost of application of this technology will be small fraction of the expenditure compared to the mammoth amount spent on infrastructural facilities for the drainage network. Large amount of irrigation water will become available for the agriculture at a minimal cost and the drought mitigation will become a realizable dream.

The RISTECH technology is being applied on many projects in Pakistan. Brackish tubewell water is being used, for irrigation and saline soils have been reclaimed. The results are more than impressive. It is pertinent to note that hundred percent results are achieved within one crop season only. The use of this technology would also go a long way in tackling the menace of salinity and water logging in a surprisingly short time and as well as make available a huge resource of needed irrigation water by treating the drainage effluents.

Conclusions: The field observations, response of the farming community and findings of the field studies indicated that the RISTECH bio-technology products are feasible, economical and promising for large-scale application in agriculture and related sectors to improve soil and water health on sustainable basis. The reasons for the successful adoption of the RISTECH bio-technologies are:

* Reclamation treatment is needed only once because the microbial activity would continue to sustain the optimal soil health;

* Irrigation water requirement will be reduced by at least 30 per cent;

* No chemical inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, weedicides are required rather these are harmful.

* The increased productivity and better quality of marketable produce results in improved profitability of irrigated agriculture.

The RISTECH bio-technologies would certainly compliment the efforts of the environmentalists and resource-poor farmers leading towards introduction of even Organic Farming in Pakistan, resulting in enhanced income for their produce which will have international marketability. This organic farming would additionally help to reduce the drainage effluents, pollution due to chemicals in the effluents, improve soil health and enhance productivity on sustained basis in the Indus basin.

The vast tract of wastelands outside the Indus basin can be reclaimed by amending the brackish groundwater in to usable water for traditional agriculture instead of raising Eucalyptus, Kallar grass and four-wing saltbush under the so-called concept of Saline-agriculture. This requires reversal in thinking process and utilization of new and emerging technologies to meet the country’s objectives of food security and surplus production for export orientation and import substitution.

The RISTECH technologies offer highly environment friendly solutions for sustainability of organic agriculture and the establishment of a progressive ecosystem, a matter of great concern for the world environmentalists.

Future challenges: RISTECH Technology provides effective and economical alternative to deal with the menace of salinity and waterlogging. This can also save billions of rupees being spent on drainage programmes such as National Drainage Programme. It can be employed to amend and manage all types of effluents (agricultural, industrial and municipal). Application of this technology on mass-scale can reclaim 22.5 million acres of culturable wasteland and contribute to increased production and surplus for exports. According to an FAO Study - for every US$ 1 increase in agricultural output, the overall economy grows by $2.3.

* The brackish groundwater resource inside and outside the Indus basin can be utilized for irrigation purposes, which will not only increase agricultural production, but also help improve the agricultural land base.

* Use of this technology would enable to produce organic food and other products. Such produce is considered to have superior taste and/or quality, and fetch higher prices in the international market. For example, organic cotton is considered to have better fibre quality. In the case of food products, organic produce is also considered to have higher nutritional value for consumers worldwide. Pakistan can, thus, build a strong export market for its agricultural produce in the form of organic food products.

* This technology is environment friendly and provides sustainable solution for managing the ecosystems whether they be placed under high mountains and watersheds, irrigated agriculture in the Indus basin, delta areas or aquatic and marine life. The need for environment friendly technologies for the watershed areas would increase in the future due to changes imposed by the climate change on hydrology and impacts of human population on hydrology.

* The Greenpeace movement in the West is moving forcefully against the pollution of natural ecosystem such as the oceans. Pakistan can benefit from the use of RISTECH technology in reducing the effluent inflow to the sea by managing these effluents at the place of their origin.

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