The livelihood resources of farmers are at risk because of droughts, floods and sea intrusion.
KARACHI: The livelihood resources of farmers are at risk because of droughts, floods and sea intrusion. Large swathes of farmlands have been rendered less fertile and less productive. In addition, nursery areas for fisheries have been affected because of inundation and coastal erosion. Flooding caused an estimated loss of around Rs250 billion to infrastructure, public and private property, agriculture and livestock in all provinces. Furthermore, crops sown on nearly two million acres were destroyed or damaged, with south Punjab and upper Sindh the worst hit.
Civil society organisations can be asked to impart local farmers the following information: 1) intercropping saves expenses on land preparation and ridge making, if onion, sugarcane and wheat is intercropped; 2) intercropping helps to cover the shortage of irrigation water by cultivating crops on ridges and this needs limited water. This means intercropping is useful in cases of limited irrigation water; 3) intercropping improves soil fertility if shallow and deep root crops are cultivated; 4) intercropping does not need traditional crop rotation because this is covered automatically by intercropping patterns; 5) there is a soil erosion problem in many sandy soils. Intercropping is a better way of preventing such erosion because soil is covered in one or other crop plants for a long time; 6) pest and pathogen issues are minimised in intercropping because they might not be present in all the plant varieties that are grown; 7) suitable crops should be chosen for intercropping. They should not have to compete for light, nutrition, irrigation water, air, planting space and so on.
Nasrullah Thahim
Published in The Express Tribune, January 5th, 2014.
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