Sowing for the Kharif season is under way and the news from various quarters is not good. At the beginning of the season, the countrys Federal Cotton Committee had set sowing targets at 7.6 million acres in a bid to produce 14 million bales of cotton for the upcoming season.
However, as of today, sources report that only around 6 million acre of the area prescribed has been harvested and with the clock having already run out on the prime sowing period, it is highly unlikely that the targets will be met.
And amongst the many perpetrators being singled out for the lagging sowing, the unreliable availability of irrigation water in crucial areas seems to stand in a league of its own.
Initially the advisory committee from IRSA had announced that as much as 10 MAF additional water would be available for the irrigation of the countrys crucial crop cycle this year. However, as the season has progressed, distressingly slow melting of glaciers up north and disputed division of the asset by the authority has made matters worse.
As of June 3, the water level in the Chashma Barrage reservoirs stands only seven feet above the dead level, a situation that has not improved over the last few weeks. At a period when sowing was in full swing, this shortage effectively resulted in decreased water supply through the Chashma-Jhelum link canal to the crucial eight districts of Southern Punjab cotton belt, including Bhakkar, Jhang, Toba Tek Singh, Khanewal, Muzaffargarh and Bahawalpur.
Additionally, irrigation to Kharif crops in areas fed from the Greater Thal, Taunsa-Punjnad link canal, Muzaffargarh canal and Dera Ghazi canal are also going to be severely affected due to this shortage.
Since water supplies are apportioned in line with 10 daily allocations for each barrages canals under Water Apportionment Accord of 1991, irrigation authorities within both Punjab and Sindh have designed area-specific rotation programmers for canal closure to ensure maximum water supply to all areas.
However sources within the Sindh irrigation department have exhibited frustration at the untimely and inadequate diversions from up north which have meant that major rice producing areas in the southern province are now parched and awaiting water at this crucial time.
In Sindh, paddy sowing in the rice producing areas of Thatta, Hyderabad and Badin start around mid-April, continuing up to May 15. However, dangerously low levels in west bank canal system of the Kotri Barrage during this time reportedly slashed harvested area in lower Sindh.
Not only that, as of June 3, while upstream discharge at Kotri stands around 8,152 cusecs, downstream discharge is at zero, and the additional unavailability in the Dadu canal and Saifullah Magsi channel has meant that rice growers even in the upper Sindh region (where paddy sowing begins in June) have been unable to prepare their fields.
At a time when growers are already facing oppression at the hands of hiking costs of agricultural inputs, the uncertainty they have faced with the unavailability of irrigation water at the time of sowing will likely have a detrimental effect come harvest time. And even amongst the slew of finger pointing officials, the one unanimous consensus remains the fact that the countrys cash crops this season are highly unlikely to meet production targets.
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