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ZT technology working wonders
Zafar Samdani
A revolution seems to be in the making in the agriculture sector, specifically in areas where wheat crop is alternated with rice. This is the fruit of zero tillage technology that has raised wheat yield by about 15 to 20 maunds per acre. When the technology is fully adopted in the wheat-rice belt covering about 13 million acres, the result should be an unimaginable wheat surplus.
Punjab had an early start and put in a lot of hard work over many years to reach the present take off stage for conservation technologies; the province of Sindh also entered a bright phase oftillage this year. The light is dim so far because wheat was cultivated on only about 500 acres with conservation method and implements in the stubbles of the harvested rice crop but the gains have been fantastic.
The maximum yield of wheat of most farms in Jacobabad, Sindh, was about 16 maunds to an acre. The same land cultivated with zero tillage has produced 40 maunds. Inputs other than the zero till unit and method were the same as in the past. " A most remarkable thing has happened," says Begum Saeeda Soomro with a measure of excitement and joy.
Begum Soomro is the mother of Sindh's last governor who is now Chairman Senate, Mohammadmian Soomro; she is a distinguished lady in her own rights, particularly in the agriculture sector. A major landowner with lands in both Sindh and Balochistan, she has shown foresight to experimentand accept and support change. She has helped people on her lands to use zero tillage technology.
I had learnt of her role in backing this form of tillage from officials of On-Farm Water Management wing of Punjab's department of agriculture and telephoned her at her residence in Jacobabad. She was most pleased with the crop and praised help from Punjab and the contribution of some officials no end.
But the change took over a year of efforts, coordination between a group of Sindh farmers and Punjab's farmers and agriculture department officials- she refers to Director General, OFWM, Mushtaq Gill by name and appreciates the positive attitude of the Punjab Governor for the gift of one zero till unit that was used to sow wheat.
The ZT drill was rented out at the rate of Rs50 a day to farmers but the rent, says Begum Soomro, "is to go towards purchasing another drill to be used for the next crop". These drills would be made available to small farmers who cultivate 50,100 or a field of a marginally bigger size.Farmers with large tracts of land in the rice-wheat areas of Jacobabad in Sindh and Jafarabad in Balochistan are making their own arrangements. Six ZT units have been ordered from this area alone while there are reports of similar interest by agriculturists in other parts of Sindh.
ZT technology did not reach the farms of Sindh overnight. More than one year was spent infamiliarizing farmers with Resource Conservation Technologies (RCT) and groups of farmers from Sindh and Punjab undertook exchange visits. Farmers of Sindh were taken to ZT fields in Punjab to observe the impact of the technology and on request of Begum Soomro, the Punjab government instructed Mushtaq Gill help Sindhi farmers in harnessing the technology for their
benefit.
The task was assigned to Water Wing's Agronomist Hafiz Mujib ur Rahman who organized field schools at a number of points in Jacobabad and Jafarabad where local farmers and village volunteers were informed of the experience of Punjab and advantages of resource
conservation. The participants were briefed that using ZT meant reduction in the cost of production by saving expenditure on fuel, save water that is becoming scarce and enhance income by increasing yields.
A group of farmers was also sent to Lahore for training at the OFWM Training Institute where they learnt the running of the equipment, using it for cultivation, maintenance of the machinery and keeping it in working condition. The three month period of training did a lot to
equip farmers with the needed know how to use ZT in their fields.
The experiment with ZT has proved, says Begum Soomro that the fields of Sindh are in no way inferior to land in any other part of the country, for that matter elsewhere in the world. But they were not being tilled in the most productive manner and ZT has removed that
vital deficiency.
The fields where the wheat crop was sown in Sindh and Balochistan were selected at vantage points so that more and more farmers should see the difference the new technology had made to the produce. This had been done earlier in Punjab with the result that many agriculturists were converted to RTC's whereas farmers are usually reluctant to go for change and prefer to follow the known and established methods of tilling land.
A similar positioning of ZT fields in Sindh and Balochistan should go a long way to win farmers for using zero tillage that is being rapidly adopted all over the world. It is not yet clear how much land would come under it for the next crop but if the government of Sindh can come up with the kind of support Punjab has given to the technologies, there is no reason why Sindh should not produce a really bumper crop in the next season.
This is however not all. There is the bed-furrow planting for cotton that is beneficial for both cotton and wheat crops. Its propagation should boost the produce of both crops, save the labour and investment of farmers and give them a better income. One hopes that the concerned authorities become alive to the potential of these technologies and play their role in boosting agriculture in areas under their administrative control.
The ZT experiment in Sindh and Balochistan underlines two vital conclusions. One: a farmer sowing wheat on a ten-acre field can increase his yield by at least 160 maunds and earn additional income of about Rs50, 000 from the crop; this is prosperity in capital words. And two: politicians and officials of the two provinces are mostly engaged in running each other down butthe result of cooperation and coordination can be tremendous.
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Pakissan.com;
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