January 30, 2006	Monday	Zilhaj 29, 1426

According to the UN, the world population is growing at 1.33 per cent per annum and is expected to reach seven billion in 2013 and eight billion in 2028. Food needs in developing countries will almost double, but land and water are becoming increasingly scarce.

New lands which are brought under cultivation are marginal and ecologically fragile and cannot make up for the land being removed from cultivation each year due to urbanization and land degradation.

The planet is suffering from global warming, prolonged droughts, degradation of natural resources and associated loss of biodiversity, rampant increase in pollution levels and deteriorating water quality. Food insecurity and rural poverty are also associated with the environmental problems.

In Pakistan, agriculture is the mainstay of the economy. Nearly one-fourth of the total output (GDP) and 42 per cent of employment is in agriculture which substantially contributes to exports. It supplies raw materials to the industry, as well as market for industrial products. About 67.5 per cent of the population living in rural areas is directly or indirectly linked to agriculture for livelihood.

Global environmental complexities are creating problems for Pakistan which is threatened with desertification and degradation of land due to rapid increase in population and growing pressure on the natural resource base to meet the needs of its people and for earning foreign exchange.

Main issues: About 80 per cent of the cultivated area, (17.13 million hectares) is irrigated, and this accounts for more than 90 per cent of the output and 22 per cent of the GDP.

The country has the largest contiguous canal irrigation system in the world with over 1.6 million kilometres of canals, branches, distributaries, field channels, and watercourses.

Forty per cent of the total water supply is lost in the canals and watercourses before reaching the farm gate. Total availability of irrigation water at the farm gate is estimated at 134.77 million acre feet, out of which 62.5 per cent is supplied by canals and 30 per cent by (5,23,080) private tube-wells, while the remaining (7.5 per cent) is shared by (22,489) public tube-wells.

Most of the irrigation system (canals and water courses) is not properly lined. In many regions of central Punjab, as much as 70 per cent of irrigation is supplied by tube-wells, particularly in the Rabi season.

The problem of salinity has become acute in recent years as a result of increased tapping of brackish groundwater for irrigation, and salinity is posing the greatest danger to natural resource. Salinity is partly the result of naturally occurring geological processes and depends on the soil material, landform, relief, climate, and land use.

The most neglected problem is that of tertiary salinity from the low-quality groundwater provided by tube-wells. It has increased as a result of the canal irrigation system as water containing dissolved salts from the lower parts of the soil profile seep from the canal system, and evaporate from the surface of adjoining soils.

Experts have estimated that yields are reduced by about one-third for crops grown on slightly saline areas and that yields on moderately affected areas are reduced by about two-thirds. Crop production of any kind is difficult on highly saline soils.

The indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides has contaminated the ground and surface water. Chemical use in irrigated areas has expanded rapidly over the past 20 years. The most serious problem stems from the rapid use of pesticide that has reached 47,592 metric tons.

The widespread use of often-dangerous pesticides on cotton crop is associated with several potential health hazards, mainly to workers who apply it.

The major problem in rain-fed areas is soil erosion which has worsened over the years as population pressure, poverty, and stagnant yields have forced more people to move on to marginal areas to meet food, fodder, and fuel wood needs. Water erosion is the major cause of soil erosion in rain-fed areas. About 11 million hectares of land is slightly or severely affected by water erosion, particularly in the NWFP where one-third of the rain-fed area is seriously affected by water erosion.

Water erosion has serious environmental consequences in both short and long terms. This includes a continued decrease in the depth, fertility, and extent of productive soils; a decrease in agricultural production; continued deterioration of rangelands and forests reserves; increased rates of sedimentation in water reservoirs and channels, affecting their maintenance cost and life span and leaving adverse affects on the transportation infrastructure (roads, railways, bridges).

Pakistan is also facing serious ecological crisis which has implications on the economy as well as on human beings. The deteriorating environmental conditions are felt more by the poor who are vulnerable because of their livelihood dependence on land, water and other natural resources that are being badly affected by environmental degradation. Whether it is water, forests or croplands, we have damaged our natural asset base.

There is a co-relationship between environment and poverty. The poor largely depend for their survival on natural resources such as soil, rivers, forests and rangelands. Their degradation takes away from the poor the very means of subsistence and pushes them into poverty and deprivation. Similarly, poor communities surviving on marginal lands are highly vulnerable to natural calamities such as drought, floods, pollution in water bodies, etc.

Policy options: Water is becoming a critical resource. More focus should be given on conservation techniques. The government should play a leading role to create awareness among farmers by disseminating conservation techniques such as lining of canals, laser land levelling, zero tillage, drought resistant varieties, etc.

Water harvesting is a technique of developing surface resources that can be used in dry regions to provide water for the livestock, domestic use, and agro forestry and small scale subsistence farming.

Traditional rainwater harvesting, which is still prevalent in rural areas, was done in surface storage bodies like lakes, ponds, irrigation tanks, temple tanks etc. In urban areas, due to the shrinking of open spaces, rainwater will have to necessarily be harvested as ground water.

Modern water harvesting techniques like ground water dams, ground water recharge, well recharging and recharge shaft should be developed to significantly increase rain-fed crop production as has successfully been done in several countries.

As the water logging and salinity situation is rapidly increasing by the use of pesticides and other chemicals, there is a need to investigate the reasons of excess use and to establish standardized assessment criteria to suggest the economic optimal level of these critical inputs use.

Institutional bridges between different stakeholders, such as farmers, teaching and research institutes and extension services should be strengthened.

Farmers should be equipped with improved farming skills and technical know-how to meet the future challenges in the changing world. Connecting rural people to knowledge networks (extension services, research and teaching institutes), is essential for developing sustainable farming systems.

The Extension Department should be reorganized based on modern technology (such as GIS remote sensing). To increase the productivity of the department it should be equipped with rich infrastructure (vehicles, computers and sufficient amount of running budgets). It will help not only to analyze the existing situation but also to transfer new technologies and ideas to small farmers. The easy excess to farmers to credit should also be given which is assumed to be a hindrance in purchasing cash inputs.

The integrated pest management (1PM) is widely advocated as a means of reducing pesticides use and developing more sustainable production. The IPM is a knowledge-intensive practice and it requires good extension services system to promote the practice.

Therefore, farmers should be facilitated by exemplary plots for which the extension department should be responsible to establish and by providing latest literature on current issues to the farmers. Such knowledge- based infrastructure does not exist in Pakistan, unless major emphasis is placed on promoting the IPM, it will be decades before pesticide use is reduced significantly.

The agricultural universities should be directly linked to farm-based communities to learn the applied problems that farmers are facing. In addition to undertaking research on vital issues confronting our agriculture, universities should deliver latest knowledge to the students. To evaluate the quality of knowledge, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) should formulate the evaluation committee consisting of subject specialist.

Research on technical, social and institutional aspects of range management should be promoted. It will help in devising appropriate solutions of rangeland degradation. The quality of agriculture product is an important issue because the WTO regulations require the export commodities to meet international standards.

In terms of value-added our major cash crops have not performed very well. In comparison, India has added value to its agricultural commodities including rice. The cardinal issue is how Pakistan can maximize the benefits as a member of the WTO. The answer is to focus on agriculture and agro-based industries, which can help in sustaining competition. At present, Pakistan has almost a non-existent share (i.e., 0.22 per cent) in total world trade. If it wants to survive in global competition, a paradigm diversification of agriculture sector is imperative.