THE Federal Budget 2006-07 has allocated Rs22.26 billion for agriculture. If the share of forestry and fisheries, which are not part of it, is deducted then the actual agriculture allocation comes to less than 1.4 per cent of the overall budget. It still remains a neglected sector despite tall claims by the successive governments.

Out of Rs2.5 billion allocated for national research, about 85 per cent will go to salaries and maintenance and the remaining 15 per cent to house rentals and research. According to international standards, about 40 per cent of the budget is required for research and 60 per cent for salaries and maintenance.

Keeping in view the importance of agriculture, its share should not have been less than three per cent of the budget. One of the reasons of this neglect is the importance given to industrial sector. The development of industrial sector can increase export earnings but these will be nullified by an increase in imports of food items to meet the needs of our growing population.

The growth rate of agriculture during 2005-06 was 2.5 per cent, below the 4.5 per cent target. One of the reasons of poor crop production was high input costs, whether of farm machinery, petrol, diesel, or electricity.

The small subsistent level farmers, cultivating nearly 50 per cent of the area, could not afford to apply balanced fertilizer, use quality seed, apply required pesticide doses and use farm machinery.

The situation was further compounded by canal water thefts by the influential landlords and politicians in connivance with the concerned irrigation department officials, especially in Sindh and southern Punjab. The deteriorating groundwater due to over mining and use of brackish water further affected the crop production.

The government allocated Rs5 billion for fertilizer bags to be provided at a subsidy of Rs500 against the market price of Rs1,100 per bag. But no subsidy has been provided for any other input nor measures been taken to reduce the cost of petrol and diesel and electricity for efficient utilization of farm machinery and tube-well operations. Thus, the major benefit of this fertilizer subsidy will go to big land holders.

The small, subsistent and below subsistent level farmers will not be major beneficiaries because the increased application of subsidized fertilizer alone will not have a significant impact on crop production in their fields unless other agronomic requirements are met in a balanced way.

Similarly, duty on the import of tractors has been removed. It will not only have adverse affects on local tractor industry but will only benefit the medium and big land holders. The cost of tractor and other relevant farm machinery is too high for small level farmers as mechanized farming can be economical under corporate farming system or through effective land reform with a ceiling of 20-25 acres.

The government should have included in its budget programme the purchase of Chinese two wheel hand-driven diesel tractors commanding 12 acres which can also be manufactured, locally and provided to small farmers on long-term loans. These tractors prepare land, sow seed and apply fertilizer in one operation thus reducing the cost of cultivation and increasing the yield up to 20 per cent. These tractors are popular in India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.

The government has earmarked Rs1 billion for the introduction of drip irrigation and sprinklers. The introduction of drip and sprinkler irrigation is important especially in Balochistan where six basins are already exhausted due to the over mining of groundwater and over irrigation of orchards and other high value crops. Had this step been taken in 80s or 90s, agricultural production would have improved.

Drip irrigation delivers water directly to root system and keeps evaporation losses at an efficiency rate of 95 per cent and saves water use by 40-60 per cent as compared to conventional gravity flow system. It is now widely used for high value crops like fruits and vegetables in many countries.

For instance, in Israel the drip irrigation is used for over 50 per cent of the area. Sprinkler irrigation can be successfully used for all crops except rice and jute. The greatest advantage of both drip and sprinkler irrigations is to directly utilize the water equivalent to the requirement of a crop at its root zone thus saving 40-60 per cent extra water flow in canals, distributaries, minor, and watercourses.

There had been a limited number of sweet water lenses in our 10.6 million hectares deserts where the groundwater is mostly brackish but soils provide excellent strata for percolation of brackish water through sand. The salt tolerant plants grown are well aerated as sand provides more space between the particles.

The harmful chlorides of sodium and magnesium, the main components of saline water are easily washed down to deeper layers of sandy soils without adversely affecting the root system of salt tolerant plants. Moreover, the harmful sodium ions of brackish water are not absorbed in sand. Chemical amendments and use of sulfurous acid generator further improves the prospects of saline water agriculture in our sandy deserts.

India has successfully grown salt tolerant field and horticulture crops by saline water. Therefore, there is great potential of growing salt tolerant field and horticulture crops in our desert sandy soils by drip irrigation through the use of local PVC pipes.

Alternately, the poor desert dwellers could be trained to use the discarded plastic infusion/drip sets from the hospitals. Each drip set should be filled with water through a slit made at the close end of the bag and tied to a pole fixed near the pit of the planted fruit saplings. Each pole may have one to three suspended infusion sets depending upon the availability of water, need of the plant, its age and the season of irrigation. The water should be transported from the wells or tube-wells and poured into the bags and its flow through the emitters be regulated according to the need.

Similarly, housewives can be trained to grow vegetables on three by 1.5 meter plots near their homes by using discarded plastic infusion sets for drip irrigation as is being done in the Rajasthan Desert of India.

The Low Energy Precision Application (LEPA) system offers considerable improvement over conventional sprinkler systems. When applied with appropriate techniques, this method can achieve irrigation efficiency as high as 95 per cent over the conventional sprinkler irrigation system. Since this method operates under low pressure, the energy cost drops by 20-30 per cent and increases the crop yields by up to 20 per cent.

No importance has been given to rain-fed agriculture as it is considered a high risk venture. The policy makers should know that by following rain water harvesting technology several countries are achieving the rain-fed crop yields equal to irrigated yields.

Not only that, they have also solved the problems of pollution of drinking water as well as its declining availability due to lowering of groundwater in big cities by following the modern roof top water harvesting. This system comprises of harvesting rainwater from roof tops of residential, commercial and industrial buildings and recycling it for drinking and domestic purpose.

This system is mandatory in many Indian states, municipal bodies. The government pays billions of rupees for this project. Even, the requirements of India’s President House are met through the roof top water harvesting system.

Several Pakistani cities not only face water shortage, rather thousands are afflicted by the water-borne diseases like gastroenteritis. Not a penny is provided in the budget for the roof top rain water harvesting. Time and again, the suggestions made by this scribe are ignored by the successive governments while the country now is facing serious domestic water shortage problems.