The Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (Parc) has launched a drought mitigation project in Rod - Kohi with a cost of Rs 2 million in Rod - Kohi areas of the country before the end of current financial year.
The Rod - Kohi irrigation system constitutes major portion of country's 'Dry Land Farming System' in all the four provinces with varying magnitudes or extends, said a Press release here on Sunday.
The area has received maximum attention in terms of the public sector investment and has been remained the main stay of agricultural-related requirement (food, fibre and edible oil, etc). However, the productivity of the water remained very low.
The extend of total irrigated areas within the Indus Basin Irrigation System of the country through irrigation water supplies is about 43 million acres.
The farmers of this ecology are involved in agricultural practices from very ancient times, and, at present, are contributing the national economy in terms of wheat, pluses, gram, low value fodder crops (like sorghum, millet, etc) and livestock. However, their contribution level is quite low.
Major factors are inherited complex system by nature, including unpredictable, inequitable, heavily silt-laden violent floods and little government attention.
It has been estimated that the annual water potential in these areas is about 18.75 maf, while some 18 million acres of land have the potential to be developed in such areas.
The major part of this typical farming system lies in Balochistan (particularly in Karachi plan of Bolan dist).
This water potential is almost twice than the current total storage capacity of Mangla and Terbala reservoirs which is about 9.58 maf.
In January 1995, Parc has launched a project under the financial support of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) to address the issues of these remote areas.
Pilot sites were identified in all four provinces (DG Khan, Punjab; Dadu, Sindh, DI Khan, NWFP; Zhob, Balochistan) and research-cum-development activities/interventions were initiated.
The prime objective of the project was to design/devise cost-effective, but sustainable technologies for productivity enhancement of these pilot sites.
By learning from initial failures and successes, the Parc teams were eventually able to devise low-cost, innovative and user-friendly methodologies for agricultural boost up in pilot sites.
As a result significant improvements like increased water reliability and equity conditions, expansion of cropped area increased crop and livestock yields, check on forced out irrigation during extreme events of floods and drought, resources and capacity building of stakeholder, participatory approach, etc were demonstrated in target areas.
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