During the last few years, the supply of irrigation water for crop production, is showing a declining trend. The pundits who can forecast the likely availability of the water for agricultural purposes in the coming days do not give much hope for improvement.Instead they foresee a scenario in which such supplies would be on the decrease every year.

Such a situation should be alarming not only for the farmers but also for the Government as crop production of both food and cash crops would be adversely affect.

For farmers, less production could mean less farm income. For the Government, it could mean resorting to importing food grains and other commodities, which would exert pressure on the foreign exchange reserves while at the same time may lead to reduced exports of the two important items - cotton and rice, thus impacting on the foreign exchange earnings.

So the situation that is likely to emerge from the dwindling supplies of irrigation water would have quite a devastating effect on the economy as a whole and on the farmers in particular. There may be increase in poverty much to chagrin of policy planners, who are trying to alleviate the already high incidence of poverty.

In order to meet this on-coming challenge, a number of measures can be taken. These would include building big water storage reservoirs, exploitation of underground water where it is fit for crop cultivation, using measures which could help increase the efficiency of available water like sprinkler irrigation, laser levelling, furrow irrigation, stopping seepage and leakages in the transportation and application of water. The cropping pattern has to be changed to the extent possible by replacing the high delta crops (i.e. those needing larger quantities of water for their growth) with low delta crops (i.e. those needing comparatively less quantities of water) and other such actions.In this article it is the last suggestion, which is discussed.

At present, there are two major high delta crops viz sugar-cane and rice. Because of the dwindling supply of irrigation water, the government decided a couple of years ago that these crops should as far as conditions of soil and climate permit, be replaced by low delta crops. To follow this policy, the Ministry of Food & Agriculture carried out a campaign in Sindh and the Punjab, more so in the former province, that sugar-cane area be replaced by sugar-beet.

What happened as a result of this campaign? The farmers in Sindh welcomed this policy and responded by bringing about 1,200 acres under sugar-beet mainly in Badin District during 2001-02. They had a good crop. But for lack of marketing facilities, which in other words meant the marketing of the crop as well as arrangements for its processing to make sugar, the farmers were left with no alternative but to plough in the crop or use it as a feed to livestock. They thus suffered financial losses. Naturally they resented such a situation. On this, the President of Pakistan constituted a committee under the chairmanship of his advisor to study the possibilities of cultivation of sugar-beet and it’s marketing from economic and other relevant aspects/views.

The committee found that sugar-beet could be grown successfully in lower Sindh where climate is more favourable than in the Punjab, particularly in the last stage of its maturity and gives high yields of sugar-beet per acre and per acre-foot of water than one gets from sugar-cane. Moreover, it can be grown on marginal and saline lands. But the Expert Advisory Cell (EAC) of the Ministry of Industries reported that having a processing plant exclusively for sugar-beet would not be an economical proposition, and that it would be viable only if its processing is done as a supplement to the sugar-cane processing after sugar-cane crushing is over.

The EAC also reported that the data obtained from a sugar mill in the NWFP, which was processing both sugar-cane and sugar-beet for the year 01, the cost of sugar made from sugar-beet was dearer by about Rs4 per kg than made from sugar-cane. This was mainly because of the non-availability of bagasse as fuel which is the main source for energy in case of sugar-cane. The cost can, however, be reduced if coal firing system could be used. The local coal is said to be quite suitable for the purpose and the imported one would be very costly.

If this is the case and also because the setting up a processing plant exclusively for sugar-beet is not economical, the cultivation of sugar-beet can be hardly justified. Moreover, our objective of sugar-beet cultivation is not to obtain sugar from it as the country is already surplus in its supplies from sugar mills. Under the circumstances, it seems that this objective would be difficult to accomplish.

Another important point, which must be kept in mind is that sugar-beet is a rabi crop and therefore, it is going to impact on the production of wheat and oil seed crops as sugar-beet would compete with these corps for land and water. The comparative advantage of these crops have to be constantly watched, always keeping in view that wheat is a strategic crop and the country can ill-afford not to keep up the production of this crop above the level of domestic requirements. It is therefore, highly imperative that the government should carefully study the pros and cons of the policy issues, before launching a full-scale campaign in favour of sugar-beet cultivation.

This situation indicates that it is problematic to replace sugar-cane by sugar-beet. In the NWFP where both sugar-cane and sugar-beet are grown since long for manufacturing of sugar, there has been in fact a decrease in the area of sugar-beet since mid- 1980’s. The average area under sugar-beet for the five-year period ending 1989-90 was 34,000 hectares, which decreased to 27.1 thousand hectares for the five-year average ending 1999-2000 and was about 30 thousand hectares in 2001-02.

In the case of sugar-cane, however, practically there was no change in the area sown to it between mid- 1980’s until recently, which has been around 102 plus thousand hectares. It may be mentioned here that also from climate point of view, the NWFP is not the most suitable area for sugar-cane cultivation as, apart from other factors, the crop is likely to be affected by frost.

Here it may also be mentioned that the analysis done by APCom shows that if sugar-cane is grown for sugar exports, it is not at all economical to do so. The situation that has emerged in the last and this year from sugar production and stocks suggests that every kilo of sugar export would need a subsidy of around Rs 4.

In view of the above, there is thus a case to find out other alternative crops or combination of crops, which need less water than sugar-came but can give equal if not better net income to the growers.

The other high delta crop cultivated in Pakistan is rice. Mainly two types of rice are grown in the country, viz course (IRRI) varieties and fine (mainly Basmati) varieties. Almost 100 per cent of Basmati rice is produced in the Punjab, while about 60 per cent IRRI rice is grown in Sindh about 16 per cent in Balochistan and the remaining in the NWFP and the Punjab.

Rice is a ‘kharif crop’ when position of water availability per acre of cultivated acre is much better than the ‘rabi’ season. In addition, timely monsoon rains do help the crop growth.

Also there are comparatively more crops that can be grown in place of rice depending on the soil, duration of maturity, water requirements, fertilizer need and so on. In addition rice can be possibly accommodated with other crops in the cropping pattern. For example, cotton sunflower and even wheat can be included in the sowing pattern plans. The decision of the farmer would depend on the comparative advantage in term of income derived from an alternative crop or a group of crops included in the cropping pattern.

APCom has done some analysis to work out the gross income per acre-inch of irrigation water used both for the Punjab and Sindh. The results indicate that the gross revenue per acre-inch of irrigation used for cotton production is much higher than obtained from rice either basmati or IRRI varieties in the Punjab as well as in Sindh. It means that rice cultivation did not compare favourably against cotton in either of the provinces. Interestingly sugar-cane stands second both in the Punjab and Sindh. In the former case, the income was reported to be less by 35 per cent while in the latter case by 28 per cent. The income from other crops or combination of crops was much less, as the study revealed.

It may be pointed out that such ratios are likely to change with the productivity level of the crops and their prices in the domestic markets. Therefore, it is very necessary that such analysis should be carried out with reasonable intervals and made known through all possible media to the farming community so that they may use the results in making their planting decisions.

At the same time, the agronomists, the breeders and the economists should continue their efforts in research and field trials and in economic analysis as to which crop(s) should be introduced which demand less water but could give equal if not more economic returns. Pulses and oil seed corps could be other alternatives worth studying. In doing so, their marketing aspect should always be kept in mind.