Warning: ‘Water scarcity will cause food crisis’

FAISALABAD: The country will face a severe food crisis if the problems of water scarcity, deteriorating groundwater quality and level were not addressed on a war-footing basis. These were the views expressed by agricultural experts at a consultative meeting of Punjab Agricultural Policy organised by the US-Pakistan Centre for Advanced Studies in Agriculture on Saturday. University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice-Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said per capita water availability in the country has decreased to 1,000 cubic meter, which was placing us in the red zone in per water availability index. “Around 1.2 million tube wells were operating in the country, deteriorating the quality of ground water.  Every year, two to three feet of underground water is decreasing,” said Dr Iqrar, adding that they were not rationally pumping out ground water which was very dangerous. He suggested that barren land in Baluchistan could be converted into a fertile land to deal with the water scarcity issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30^th, 2016.