Crop Zoning - a way forward to cope with food security issues.

MULTAN -- With our population estimated to crossing 220 million figure, the country would be in dire need of enhancing agricultural production during days ahead to meet domestic needs and enhance export volume to earn foreign exchange.

Since the country has been bifurcated into different provinces and zones, the experts see the crop zoning as vital for getting desired contribution of the agriculture sector in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Bestowed with uncountable bounties of nature South Punjab is a fertile region for crops production but the cultivation trend keeps changing due to improper crop zoning mechanism.

There was a time when South Punjab landscape used to amuse the commuters by its white-sea-look (cotton crop) on both sides of roads but over the decades this trend took a dramatic turn with sugarcane replacing the cotton gradually.

'Cotton used to be almost everywhere and in December, the full blossomed cotton flowers used to look like a white sea,' recalled Rabia Sultan, a progressive farmer from Thatha village in Muzaffargarh district.

Ms Sultan used to grow cotton on an area of more than 200 acres but now she has a crop mix of wheat, sugarcane, mango with cotton reduced to just 35-40 acres.

'Whole of South Punjab was a central place in terms of cotton cultivation,' she said and quoted example of another district Vehari where cotton was grown even more than whole of Sindh province in 1980s and 1990s.

Rabia Sultan believed that crop zoning was the best option for the government and policy planners to go after. 'Specific crop mix in this region can give best production results for being suitable in terms of weather pattern, land fertility and availability of experienced workforce.'

She explained that sugarcane being a water-intensive crop triggers humidity and needs 25-30 water applications throughout in a yearlong activity. 'On the other hand cotton needed dry atmosphere to avoid pest pressure. It is also a mainstay for our textile industry.'

Almost a decade back Pakistan had 7.8 million acres cotton area with major contribution of almost 6.2 million acres from Punjab. But in coming years this area shrunk to almost five million acres with Punjab standing at 3.1 million acres.

'Crop zoning is a beautiful idea and Pakistan will have to opt for it one day. But, we would be needing consent of provinces to implement this mechanism,' said Dr Muhammad Ali Talpur, Advisor to the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

He said...