Rethinking Pakistan's agriculture.

THE climate change-induced rains of last summer left millions of people homeless in many parts of Pakistan. While it is correct to put pressure on the international community to pay their share of the climate debt, the seismic nature of the disaster should focus our attention on drawing up our own policy framework so that we can do our bit.

In this article, I propose clean energy alternatives as a means of reducing the fossil fuel footprint in the country, and to make agricultural production sustainable on the basis of self-sufficient energy. A case in point is the increase in the use of tube wells in agriculture since the 1960s, mainly due to government subsidies. It has led to a significant increase in the area irrigated by groundwater. This has resulted in a decline in the area irrigated exclusively by canal water, which reduced by 38 per cent between 1960 and 2015.

Another issue of considerable concern is the high consumption of water by only four crops: wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton. These major crops consume around 85pc of the total pumped irrigation water, measuring around 51 billion cubic metres per year. This highlights the need for a more sustainable approach to agriculture and irrigation in Pakistan.

The extraction of groundwater in the country relies heavily on non-renewable sources of energy, such as fossil fuels, leading to high levels of carbon emissions. This not only contributes to environmental pollution but also increases the cost of production for Pakistan's farmers. The energy that is required for the irrigation of the four major crops mentioned here has a footprint of 103 PJ (petajoule), which is equivalent to 2.5 million metric tons of oil. It generates a carbon footprint of 11 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide, which accounts for 6pc of the national carbon footprint. Most of the energy is used by diesel pumps that extract shallow groundwater, accounting for 73pc of the total energy use, followed by electric pumps that extract deep groundwater.

Pakistan can significantly reduce its energy consumption in irrigation.

The factors that determine the energy and carbon footprints for irrigation water in Pakistan vary spatially and temporally, depending on the crop type, crop water requirements, fraction of the gravity-fed and pumped water, groundwater tables, and energy sources for pumping, including diesel, electric and solar energy.

A recent research study has identified 10 hot-spot districts that make up 42pc of...

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