Strengthening agriculture through dryland farming
A DRYland or barani area is characterised by low, highly erratic rainfall of 100-600mm annually, where crops are cultivated without irrigation.
The arid areas of the developing world presently occupy over 40pc of the earth’s land surface and are inhabited by around 2.5bn people.
These regions struggle to provide enough food for their growing populations and face a series of disconcerting physical and demographic challenges such as land degradation, severe water scarcity, high poverty levels, unemployment and rapid urbanisation.
Dryland agriculture has received less attention compared to irrigated agriculture. Most of the land area of Pakistan is categorised as arid to semi-arid, and there is a need to increase productivity of barani areas to meet the needs of an increasing population.
Dryland communities are usually remote from markets and tend to be ignored by decision makers
The major issue in the barani areas is an inadequate supply of water, falling short of the requirements of the specific crops. Sometimes the long dry weather conditions cause near famine conditions as heat and wind increase the evaporation of water.
Dryland communities are usually remote from markets, and tend to be ignored by decision makers. Dryland issues are not on the government’s list of priorities.
These areas differ in their agro-meteorological conditions, production systems, socio-economics and demographic features. Thus, their development potential cannot be grouped broadly for strategy planning. Even within a respective agro-ecological zone, the strategies have to be specific to local conditions.
The potential for improving productivity per unit area is linked to rain-fed research. Measures for enhancing dryland productivity include: adequate credit facilities; assured market demand; minimum support price for rain-fed commodities like oilseeds, pulses, and peanut; land consolidation; effective rainwater harvesting, conservation and utilisation; provision of good quality seed; effective nutrient management and weed control.
The real job is to judge and adopt known and proven technologies: site-specific technologies for water harvesting, moisture conservation, soil management, crop production, range management, agro-forestry, and livestock.
There must be an effective spread of agricultural technologies for the end users and an effective support price mechanism must be introduced for specific dryland crop produce. Intermingling of fragmented holdings will help manage farm lands more effectively. Agro-based, labour-intensive industries should be developed with education and training of women in the relevant agro-based enterprises.
Other measures include controlled grazing, construction of check dams, re-afforestation and ground water recharge etc. The mode of farming should economise on water use and promote conservation.
The writer is an assistant professor at PMAS Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Attock Campus.
Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, August 15th, 2016