very year we observe the World Water Day and present various scenarios. The usual messages include: we are a water-scarce country; agriculture is the largest water consuming sector (>90 percent); agricultural water use is inefficient; ground water depletion is higher than the recharge; industrial waste water goes into the clean water streams untreated; water-borne diseases are very common; water is not correctly priced; we have transboundary and interprovincial water disputes; there is unjust water sharing among the upper and lower riparian; there is sea water intrusion in the Indus River delta due to insufficient flow down Kotri; urban sprawl shows no consideration of sustainable water supplies (RUDA, in particular); we should build more water storages; rain water harvesting is an opportunity; climate change poses serious challenges to the future of water on Earth; and Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate change calamities. Every year we get a warning from IRSA that there will be 30-35 percent water shortage during Rabi/ Kharif seasons.

Adopting sustainable land and water management practices is essential to create new avenues for agricultural development. The livelihood linked with fisheries in the region and aquatic ecosystem conservation need to be protected for socio-economic benefits. We have a federal Water Policy that is a dormant document.

As a result of the World Bank brokered Indus Water Treaty of 1960, we have two dead rivers (Ravi and Sutlej). We built two large dams and link canals to divert water from western rivers to Ravi and Sutlej canal command areas and to create a perennial irrigation network instead of run-of-the-river canals of the colonial days. Ground water extraction was initially started to reclaim water logged soils; it has now become a parallel irrigation resource. As a result, the cropping intensity has risen from the design capacity of 60 percent to more than 160 percent.

A new dimension has now been added to our water discourse – the so-called six new canals. The canals slated to be dug include two each in Sindh and the Punjab under the Green Pakistan Initiative. The ultimate goal is to bring culturable waste lands under cultivation for a food secure Pakistan. There has, however, been a huge outcry against one canal, which is to be dug into the Cholistan desert. The people of Sindh province are protesting hard against it.

We have a finite water resource, which is likely to decline, aggravating our water woes. A grassroots social movement is needed to persuade people to save and respect water. The awareness effort should begin at the school level. The biggest avenue for saving water is known to be the irrigation practices in agriculture. There has been a lot of investment to prevent conveyance losses. However, the on-farm losses have been only marginally addressed through laser levelling. The option of high efficiency irrigation systems is known but its implementation is easier said than done. One needs to have on-farm storage, energy and pipelines to operate drip and sprinkler irrigation systems. That is a far cry in a system where average farm holding is below five acres. Farming is dominated by five crops. Canal water is delivered by the force of gravity and shared through a warabandi system.

Instead of looking for imported solutions, one should work on low-hanging local fruit. Two (wheat and rice) of the five crops occupying 29.8 million acres consume 76 MAF water. These are not fit for adopting drip irrigation, even if we have all the free energy and mechanisation available.

Researchers at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, have paid due attention to the challenge of efficiently irrigating wheat/ rice systems. The concept and evidence for redesigning the water application of two crops is a simple shift from flood to furrow/ bed irrigation. It has the potential to create a surplus that can meet the water allocation required to feed the six new canals and to create a surplus for bringing rest of the culturable waste (~20 million acres) into use along with additional flow to the sea, down Koteri.

The Green Pakistan Initiative is meant to promote corporate farming for cultivation of only 1.5 million acres of desert land including 0.6 million acres in Cholistan. There is an option of 30-40 percent water saving from flood irrigated wheat and rice crops in succession. An estimated 4,121 cusecs (~1 MAF) of water will be required to irrigate 0.6 million acres of land in Cholistan, which is a relatively small part of the overall water budget, and yet the most contentious. Hence there is a need for debate and dialogue.

The suggestion to invest in (subsidise) mechanised planting of wheat and rice using indigenously produced tractor mounted bed planter. The rice crop should be directly seeded instead of the traditional practice of nursery transplant. However, there is typical resistance to a new idea. The other reason is the cost of mechanisation involved. The analysis presented here is based on several years of field testing. The bed planting of two crops in a succession not only saves water but is also energy efficient and better yielding.

Area under rice-wheat is 29.8 million acres (out of the 54 million acres cropped land). The two crops consume 76.27 MAF of irrigation water. Any crops diversification and horizontal expansion requires vertical productivity growth in wheat and rice. Higher water use efficiency of two crops can spare irrigation water for bringing more land under cultivation. Water use efficiency is linked to transforming the flood irrigated farming practices to bed planting through locally tested (and affordable) machinery. A shift from conventional irrigation to bed planting of two crops can save 37.2 MAF of water. This has enormous economic value.

The Punjab currently provides a subsidy for the promotion of mechanised agriculture. Similar incentive schemes exist in other provinces. It has been estimated that equipping 0.5 million tractors with a bed planter each would cost Rs 220 billion. The amount of water saved within a year would be sufficient to pay back the cost incurred. Obviously, the typical farmer is not in a position to make the extra spending on farm equipment. There is a case here for prioritising the subsidies being offered to save water.

Prohibiting unregulated water pumping, water pricing and installation of a telemetry system to monitor inter provincial water flow could provide solutions. A consensus of interprovincial agreement in the Council of Common Interest is needed to comply with the 18th Amendment for provincial autonomy. An open, honest and evidence-based debate can remove misgivings of the protesting people.

Bringing productive agriculture to Cholistan without addressing the concerns in Sindh is not the way. However, awareness, policy dialogue with experts and use of alternatives in irrigation with mechanisation can help achieve the objectives of the Green Pakistan Initiative.

The writer is a former vice chancellor of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad.