Rice Productivity of Pakistan is very low among major rice producing countries of the globe merely due to such conventional and indigenous sowing techniques of rice cultivation which are not time and resource efficient. Lack of technology and innovative methods in our cultivating culture leads the farmers to spend more and get less return. Specifically, Rice cultivation is far more backward and water exhaustive in our region.
Other limitations which result in getting low results are uneven fields, unavailability of new seed varieties, lack of optimum plant population, imbalance and non-judicious use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides, insect pest infestation and lavish harvesting losses. There is an urgent needs to tackle these problems and educating the farmers in this regard, Water Productivity Projects shall be initiated through which farmers may be educated on water saving techniques and innovative technology oriented skills and techniques.
With the help of these initiatives, farmers shall be trained to enhancing their capacity for exploring water and resource efficient ways. In this way they can not only enhance their yield but also curtail their cost of production to avail better health and education facilities in the end.
In Pakistan one such project WAPRO was initiated with the help of Rice Partners (Pvt.) Limited along with MARS Food and Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation. WAPRO has successfully achieved most of its goals. It has registered and trained 12000 farmers and is expanding its circle to more farmers and stakeholders in rice value chain. Rice experts including Mr. Muhammad Ali Tariq, Mr. Zafar Iqbal & Mr. Imran Sheikh have tried to empower the farmers without any discrimination of gender and class and with the help of all relevant stakeholders including rice growers, Private sector, INGOs and public sector (Policy level); it has made a place for women participants and restrict the child labor in farm operations like transplanting of rice.
In the progress of the years of 2016-17 as per WAPRO project, RPL has created eight teams for providing advisory service to hundreds of progressive contractual farmers directly and 12000 non-contractual farmers indirectly through trainings, farmer field schools, seminars, demo. Plots and farmers’ field days in six main areas of Punjab Gujranwala, Kamoki, Narang Mandi, Muridke, Farooqabad and Sheikhupura. Learned information is further replicated among masses of non -project farmers for their growth and necessary education through concept of master trainers considered as “Ambassador of Change”.
Spreading awareness among the farmers about the use of technology and has multiple benefits. After registering initial farmers for the training and awareness, the team gave awareness about the land laser leveling technique which is quite popular & comprehensive technique in achieving the water productivity, crop yields and cutting down labor requirement in the rice value chain. For making it a transparent and progressive activity, RPL signed contracts with the farmers and the service providers and decided the 50% cost sharing strategy with farmers. For this purpose, WAPRO team selected demo plots for experimenting and explaining all process. With this technology, RPL started leveling their lands and achieving success in having great results in yield, quality & income.
When the whole process was done, there was a crystal clear difference between cost benefit ratio of leveled and unleveled lands and it was quite evident that the leveled land had 15% less weed infestation than unleveled land indirectly minimizing insect pest attack because these weeds are alternate hosts of insects and diseases. Along with this, they also promoted the Alternative Wetting and Drying (AWD) technique which helped in reducing the pumping cost by 15%-30% without affecting the crop quality.
RPL Installed the AWD tubes in the registered farmers’ fields. With this step, the team not only gave awareness but also physically installed the tubes for them to save money on irrigation costs and obtained higher net return by using AWD. It was observed that with all this progress, the farmers are getting great results than other and are happy with this.
They also guided the farmers about the selection of seed, use of modern planting implements, sowing methods, optimum sowing time, judicious use of fertilizers, pesticides and optimum time for harvesting. In addition of laser land leveling and AWD tube, They provided alternate sowing techniques like Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) for promoting resource use efficiency in the form of free seed, direct seeded drills and advisory service on DSR. Farmers also welcomed this initiative of DSR because it helped them in reducing cost of land preparation, time and maintenance of optimum plant population.
With the help of its advantages, energy use was reduced by 15%, and water use was reduced by 17-34%. The yield was increased up to 15%. The yield of the following wheat crop was also increased as compare to conventional method of Puddled Transplanted Rice (PTR). RPL has revealed that with the help and combination of these technologies developed synergies for saving water about 26%. These multiple technologies enabled registered rice farmers to gain an increase in the water productivity, yield , quality and income from rice crop which has attracted non-registered farmers too.
With its efforts, the project and team gained international attention and started receiving appreciation for their efforts. Ambassador of Switzerland to Pakistan H.E Marc P. George participated in an informal meeting with rice growers at Rice Partners Pvt. Limited field camp Muridke. During his visit, he appreciated the efforts and steps to tackle with the problems of farmers and cultivation. With all this procedure, crop income of rice has gone up to 50% for the registered farmers.
It has encouraged the farmers that by adopting these water saving technologies, they can achieve the economic prosperity and provision of better living standards to their families. Moreover, they handled the challenges related to farmers and project with great care and success. With an efficient and dedicated team, the project has gained much success and attention. RPL is now improving its thresholds with more efficient techniques and expanding its circle to more people and to other regions.
