Balochistan holds the key to future advances in agriculture and obtaining food security. Balochistan is aridland, and the temperatures are ever increasing. Crops seeds no longer are tolerant to that kind of temperatures and are neither capable of bearing the salinity. The rainfall is also erratic. With climate change and ever increasing temperature where does lie the salvation perhaps that lie in the fact that there ought to be some way of reducing soil temperatures. That is not difficult for farmers who believe in creating their own microclimate. Unfortunately there are no farmers who believe in that sort of intervention for they have always been told that the root system of trees interferes with the growth of the grains that are planted and that there is competition for scarce resources.
Some young farmers (and some of them graduate from abroad) were advised to grow wheat in orchards and then compare the production with that grown conventionally. They were very skeptical but they followed the instructions and found that they had 50 per cent increased production from orchard planting of wheat.
The reason was simple. The temperatures of the orchard land were considerably less because of the shade provided by fruit trees. China has been doing this in forests that they have created of a tree called Powlonia, a remarkable one that has an erect bearing. So has been tried by the Pakistan Forest Institute at Peshawar.
Balochistan was blessed with Karezze systems, underground water systems that have been dismantled, One of the biggest factors for the loss of Kareze system has been the development process whereby the installation of tube wells has led to prodigality of the worst kind.
There is ample water and we waste the equivalent of three Tarbela dams in Balochistan province. As per estimates Balochistan has the largest available rainfall harvest water upto 7.2 MAF/Annum.
Water is available and the two districts of Chagai and Kharan are capable of feeding the country. Between them they hold 6.5 million hectares ready for wheat cultivation. In fact, the land under wheat cultivation, according to the target, has not been achieved. By now even if production were one ton per ha, the total quantity of wheat grown from this area would have been 6.5 million tons. The obvious query would be but there is no water. But it is wrong. Water is there at a depth of 60 to 90 feet and the way forward was to teach the farmers how to use that water efficiently. That was not done. The existing technical efficiency of the farmer had to be improved and the irrigation agronomist as well as the crop agronomist working in tandem could have done that.
So with a judicious mix of water and of selected plants we can have our agriculture going in the province. There are other trees that can do the trick and that can be useful for the habitat and the environment. The world around us has unlimited facilities and these facilities is our duty to determine. The bald mountains, once upon a time were, not bald and need not be so in the future.
Some young farmers (and some of them graduate from abroad) were advised to grow wheat in orchards and then compare the production with that grown conventionally. They were very skeptical but they followed the instructions and found that they had 50 per cent increased production from orchard planting of wheat.
The reason was simple. The temperatures of the orchard land were considerably less because of the shade provided by fruit trees. China has been doing this in forests that they have created of a tree called Powlonia, a remarkable one that has an erect bearing. So has been tried by the Pakistan Forest Institute at Peshawar.
Balochistan was blessed with Karezze systems, underground water systems that have been dismantled, One of the biggest factors for the loss of Kareze system has been the development process whereby the installation of tube wells has led to prodigality of the worst kind.
There is ample water and we waste the equivalent of three Tarbela dams in Balochistan province. As per estimates Balochistan has the largest available rainfall harvest water upto 7.2 MAF/Annum.
Water is available and the two districts of Chagai and Kharan are capable of feeding the country. Between them they hold 6.5 million hectares ready for wheat cultivation. In fact, the land under wheat cultivation, according to the target, has not been achieved. By now even if production were one ton per ha, the total quantity of wheat grown from this area would have been 6.5 million tons. The obvious query would be but there is no water. But it is wrong. Water is there at a depth of 60 to 90 feet and the way forward was to teach the farmers how to use that water efficiently. That was not done. The existing technical efficiency of the farmer had to be improved and the irrigation agronomist as well as the crop agronomist working in tandem could have done that.
So with a judicious mix of water and of selected plants we can have our agriculture going in the province. There are other trees that can do the trick and that can be useful for the habitat and the environment. The world around us has unlimited facilities and these facilities is our duty to determine. The bald mountains, once upon a time were, not bald and need not be so in the future.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment