LAHORE, Oct 12: Proper training of farmers can help reduce use of pesticides, fertilisers as well as water, reveals a study of a project launched by the WWF with the cooperation of the European Commission this January.

The four-year project, Promoting Better Management Practices, focuses cotton and sugarcane crops in Bahawalpur and Faisalabad districts.

The project, costing one million euros, is aimed at training around 80,000 farmers through Farmers Field Schools.

During a visit to a couple of these schools in Bahawalpur district, the farmers engaged in the project said they had reduced the use of pesticide by 70 to 80 per cent. They had also cut cost of fertilisers by 25-30 per cent while water is also being utilised more efficiently.

Pesticides are usually sprayed seven to eight times on cotton crop but the farmers applying better management practices have so far sprayed the poison twice.

Malik Bashir, one of the farmers being trained at an FFS close to Khanqah Sharif, said the milestone was achieved by disseminating the information among cotton growers that use of poison annihilates enemy pests less but farmer-friendly pests more. The sprays not only increase the cost of production but also affect health of farmers as well as damaging environment.

According to him, they used the pesticides only when other measures failed.

At the schools, the farmers are told which pests are useful and which are harmful as the reduced spray of poison is resulting in better growth of farmer-friendly pests.

What was heartening to learn was the confidence the semi-illiterate farmers are gaining through training at these schools. The confidence they displayed while responding to queries being put by reporters and experts from agriculture departments of Punjab and Sindh was quite laudable.

At the ceremony held in Bahawalpur on Monday last for formal launching of the project nine months after start of its execution, Dr Iftikhar Ahmad of the Islamabad Agriculture Research Council expressed his reservation that the after sometime farmers might revert to old practices as was witnessed in other projects.

Head of operations of European Commission Michael Dale and WWF-UK fresh water and toxic programme director David Tickler also spoke on the occasion.