Carved out of the Muzaffargarh district in 1982, Layyah is one of the least industrialised regions of Punjab and derives its name from wild fuelwood known as Layyan in the local diction.

Lying between the mighty Indus and Chenab rivers in Sindh Sagar Doab, it contains three agro-ecological zones — creek and low lands in the west that are inundated by floods by Indus, the irrigated tract of Thal’s fertile plains appropriate for growing wheat, rice and sugarcane, and the sandy Thal desert suitable mainly for gram (chickpea) crop.

With a population of 1.824 million as per the 2017 census, the total cultivated area in the district is over 1.12m acres, of which 0.83m acres are irrigated and 0.18m acres are barani (rain-fed) area. There are over 0.539m acres of uncultivated land, around 60,000 acres of culturable waste and about 0.5m acres of unculturable land.

The district has an extremely hot climate, while in winters the temperature is low due to its proximity to the Suleman range. Greater Thal Canal is the major irrigation channel helping to bring more desert lands under cultivation with the development of its distributaries.

Major crops include wheat, sugarcane, cotton, rice, pulses, bajra (millet) and til (sesame seed), while citrus is the main fruit of the area. Wheat and sugarcane claim most of the cultivated land as the former was grown on 655,000 acres and the latter on 676,000 acres during the 2020-21 season.

Like other South Punjab districts, sugarcane is winning the hearts of the farming community in Layyah as its yield and price improves, the number of nearby sugar mills increases and cotton continues to disappoint

The area under wheat was 450,000 acres in 1990 when its average yield was less than 16.5 maunds per acre. The area and yield improved gradually as farmers like Muhammad Ashfaq of Karor tehsil claims to have harvested close to 50 maunds per acre this season.

Like other South Punjab districts, sugarcane is winning the hearts of the farming community year on year as its acreage has more than doubled since 1990 when it had been sown on 309,000 acres. The tract under sugarcane touched its peak of 746,000 in 2019 before sliding down to 676,000 next year.

The popularity of the water-guzzling crop may be attributed to improvement in its per acre yield, from 22.1 tonnes in 1990 to 44 tonnes in 2020, a better price, and widening of its market as a number of sugar mills have been commissioned around the district in the near past — four in Kot Addu, adjoining tehsil of Muzaffargarh, and two in Jhang district, while one mill is functional in the district itself since the Ayub Khan era.

Another contributing factor is the failure of the cotton crop, whose acreage had gradually gone up from 41,000 in 1990-91 to 133,000 in 2014-15, then its popularity graph began to decline when it came under pest attacks in successive years and was sown only on 85,000 acres in 2020. With an average of 15 maunds per acre, Layyah along with Muzaffargarh account for the lowest white lint yield in the cotton belt of Punjab.

Rizwan Khan, a ginner, blames poor quality seed, adulterated pesticide, and lack of government attention towards the cotton growers’ problem as well as the textile mafia for the collapse of the cotton crop. “The germination ratio of the seed provided by mushrooming seed companies has been very poor. These companies offered no extension services to growers of this far-flung area. Contrary to the seed marketing companies’ claims, the crop would invite pest attacks, particularly of pink bollworm. The pesticides available were either adulterated or were too costly, multiplying the cost of production.”

The textile mills also add to the problems of the ginners through delayed payments, or deducting the payables on one pretext or the other, who would then fall short of clearing dues of the farmers, he said, adding the commissioning of new sugar mills in the vicinity of the district also extended an alternative to growers in the shape of sugarcane crop.

The sowing of moong pulse was once in vogue in the area before the advent of the Greater Thal Canal. Its acreage in 1995 was 146,000 with 4.87 maunds per acre yield. Despite improvement in its yield, touching almost 12 maunds per acre in 2010, the crop lost its lustre for growers and the area under it gradually decreased to 38,600 acres. And because of the failure in introducing new seeds for years, its yield has also dropped to 4.34 maunds per acre now.

Chaudhry Muhammad Yousaf, a former agriculture department officer from the district, says that lesser use of weedicides and lack of spray of pesticide are contributing to the decline in moong production.

Dairy farming is also changing the agricultural landscape as various fodder crops are replacing the cotton fields to meet the feed requirements of the cattle. As per the 2018 survey of the Livestock Department, there are 446,409 cattle, 183,785 buffalo, 363,462 goats and 323,640 sheep in the district, developing it as a calf-fattening hub in the province.

The acreage of fodder has improved from 133,960 acres in 1995 to 163,200 in 2019 though, interestingly, the average yield has come down from 60.8 maunds in 1995 to 36.5 maunds in 2019.

Likewise, the growers would allocate just around 20,000 acres for bajra (millet) in the 1990s but the land under this fodder crop has shot up more than fivefold as it had been sown on around 110,000 acres of land last year.

Upset by mafias and problems in cotton and sugarcane crops, some farmers are turning towards growing citrus orchards. Earlier, mosambi and fruiter varieties of citrus were trendy in the area but since the introduction of kinnow (mandarin) variety in the 1990s with taste as good as of the produce from Sargodha district more land has been brought under it — from just 15,000 acres in 1995 to 145,000 acres in 2020. Around a dozen mandarin grading and polishing units have also been set up in the district as a good chunk of the produce is being exported, says Chaudhry Yousuf.

To meet water shortage in the district with a hot climate, some progressive farmers are using modern irrigation methods like drip irrigation and sprinklers and sowing multiple crops simultaneously. Shakeel Rauf, is one such farmer, who claims that the productivity of his land has increased many folds with the installation of a drip irrigation system subsidised by the government.

He says that the canal water provided by the irrigation department was insufficient for inter-cropping because every crop required different water levels. Drip irrigation resolved this issue as well as enabled Mr Rauf to not only use water efficiently but also increased effective application of fertiliser and other nutrients through the drip system as per the plant’s requirement at various stages of its growth. As most of the district comprises sandy dunes, drip irrigation also helped overcome uneven topography and odd field configurations, the issues faced in flood irrigation.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 28th, 2021