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Agriculture resource management
By Bilal Hassan
There is a wide gap between actual and potential yield of
different crops. For wheat, rice, sugar cane, cotton, maize
and edible oil, this gap is 72, 84, 74, 56, 73, 86 and 77 per
cent, respectively.
In respect of yield per hectare, Pakistan ranks 8th in wheat,
9th in rice, 10th in cotton, 15th in maize and virtually
lowest in sugar cane in spite of having the largest irrigation
system in the world. This reflects poor management of
agricultural resources by different governments.
With the growth of industrial, manufacturing and servicing
sectors over time, the share of agriculture in Pakistan's
gross domestic product (GDP) has declined from 53 per cent in
1947 to 24 per cent in 2004.
Similarly, the 66 per cent labour force employed in this
sector has now fallen to 44 per cent currently. It provides
necessary raw material to agro-based industries. The share of
agro-based products to total exports is nearly 80 per cent.
Keeping in view the overwhelming importance of agriculture,
this sector has not been treated properly.
With fast increasing population growth pressure on agriculture
sector is mounting to meet food and fibre needs of the people.
Population has risen to 145 million from 32.5 million in 1947.
It is estimated that it will touch 180 million by 2010 and 280
million by 2025. It is unfortunate that the current
agricultural growth (2.4pc) is below the population growth
rate (2.6pc).
This is a warning bell for policy makers. It lays stress on
the fact that the policy makers should devise ways and means
to meet the future challenges of food, feed and fibre through
efficient utilization of available resources.
To end stagnation in the crop production requires a series of
measures related to soil, water, agronomic and socio economic
factors. It is imperative to increase crop production.
It is possible either to increase area under a particular crop
or by enhancing yield of a crop per unit area. In both of the
cases, there is a great need for efficient utilization of
resources.
To increase the area under a particular crop requires measures
to reclaim soil that has been rendered unproductive due to
water logging, salinity and erosion. Soil depletion, soil
erosion, salinity and water logging have resulted in reduction
of significant cropped area.
There is a wastage of about 8.7mha, 6.3mha, 11.2mha and
4.73mha of land due to water logging, salinity, water erosion
and wind erosion, respectively.Obviously, crop area can be
increased provided arresting these problems with full
commitment.
Though efforts were made in the past to tackle these problems,
yet they did not yield tangible results due to lack of
commitment. Water is an important input in agriculture sector.
Luckily, Pakistan is gifted with abundant water resources with
144maf average annual river flow and 52maf of ground water.
Still, about 10mha cultivable area has to bring under plough.
This requires water for irrigation. In spite of the fact that
the country has one of the largest canal irrigation systems,
about 17mha is irrigated area out of the total 22.92mha
cropped area, water shortage has become the common phenomenon.
It is because of the fact that water resources are not
properly managed.
Canal irrigation system comprises of the Indus River, its
eastern and western tributaries, major and minor canals, link
canals, dams, barrages, head works and watercourses.
The irrigation efficiency of this system is very poor due to
great water losses recurring in the wake of deep percolation,
seepage and evaporation. About 35 per cent water is lost from
major and minor canals, 24 per cent from watercourses and 25
per cent from field application.
There is a great need to save water by curtailing these losses
through lining of canals and watercourse and plantation of
trees on the banks of canals and watercourses. It may be
mentioned here that allocation of Rs66 billion for lining of
86,000 watercourses by the government is a commendable
decision.
Again, increasing water storage capacity through the
construction of dams is need of the day. Continuous
sedimentation of the existing water reservoirs has reduced
their storage capacity.
Currently, storage capacity of all water reservoirs is about
17maf. This makes it necessity to construct new dams. In
rain-fed areas, it is important to follow water conservation
practices to bridge the gap between actual and potential crop
yields.
Availability of seed with desirable characters such as high
yielding variety, resistant to drought, lodging, insect/pests
and diseases, to the farmers for the purpose of sowing is
necessary.
It is important to exploit the biotechnological techniques to
introduce genes of desirable characters in the seed to get
high yields. The concept of genetically modified food is
gaining momentum in developed countries and some developing
countries as well.
To increase yield per unit area, it is suggested to manage
agronomic factors. These include use of quality seed for
sowing, preparing fine seedbeds, timely sowing, using
recommended seed rate, maintaining adequate moisture in the
seedbeds, maintaining plant population, applying irrigation at
critical crop growth stages, using balanced amount of
fertilizers, eradicating weeds, adopting plant protection
measures and timely harvesting.
Courtesy: The DAWN
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