Available evidence in Pakistan shows that the overall yield gap in the production of major crops lies between 40 percent and 50 percent, while major critical factor for decreasing the yield gap is the timely availability of water.
An update report on 'Inefficient Use of Scarce Water', prepared by the consultants of Asian Development Bank, for the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) showed that water resources are the mainstay of Pakistan's agro-based economy. Agriculture uses about 96 percent of available surface and ground water largely for irrigation purposes; the domestic sector uses 2.2 percent, while the industrial sector consumes 0.6 percent, which is mostly ground water. The major issues with regard to irrigation water are its low supply, the degradation of the resources, and its inefficient use.
The report said out that overall water supply in Pakistan is highly limited, and its availability is decreasing rapidly. Current water availability is just 1,200 cubic metres per person. By 2025, per capita water is projected to drop to 800 cubic metres per person, qualifying the country as water-stressed. About 90 percent of its water originates from the Indus River, thus making the country highly vulnerable, given this single source's water flow variability. Climate change has only exacerbated this fluctuating flow as evidenced by the series of droughts and flooding Pakistan experienced in recent years, the report said.
It says that the irrigation systems were built to distribute water to a contiguous 14.9 million hectares; an additional 3.5 million hectares are earmarked for irrigation through separate water systems. Unfortunately, expanded irrigated area and increased cropping intensity developed faster than the actual water availability. Stable water supply cannot also be assured because of the highly dilapidated state of the irrigation infrastructure, majority of which is a century old. The design of the infrastructure is outmoded to meet the specific requirements of modern supply chains. Canal irrigation efficiency has thus deteriorated to less than 50 percent, meaning that 40 million acre-feet (MAF) of water are lost annually from the system. Moreover, the very few storage capacities that are available along the Indus River system are being progressively lost due to siltation of major reservoirs. Because of inadequate water, inequities in water allocation become more pronounced with the farmers at the tail end of the canal system being more deprived, and water thefts by influential farmers at the head of the water-course intensifying.
According to the report, declining surface water sources have prompted the government to promote tube-well development to mine groundwater. Tube-well construction grew exponentially as the Government introduced subsidies for tube-well installation and imposed flat charges for electricity used for operating tube-wells. A water market for ground water flourished with most farmers installing tube-wells to sell water. This subsequently led to over-extraction of underground water. In the 1990s, the price distorting policies were removed, which partially abated the water mining through tube-wells.
The report pointed out that the problem of low water levels from ground and surface water is compounded by declining water quality. Untreated agriculture, industrial and municipal effluent is being discharged improperly. Low irrigation efficiency, estimated at 40 percent, and poorly managed water distribution system have caused water-logging and soil salinity/sodicity problems in at least 8 million hectares of agricultural lands. Increased siltation of major reservoirs has also decreased existing water storage capacities by 30 percent.
Not only is the quantity of water resources getting scarcer and its quality being threatened but the limited water is also being used and managed inefficiently. The main factors for the inefficient water use are: the low priority accorded to and the under-funding of maintenance and repair work of the irrigation facilities, weak incentives for efficient water use and pricing, institutional weaknesses in implementing and enforcing integrated water resource management, limited participation of farmers in the management of irrigation systems, lack of transparency and accountability on water distribution and service delivery, and weak regulatory systems, the report highlighted.
In this report, the consultants of Asian Development Bank have highlighted that there is preference for construction of new irrigation facilities rather than regular maintenance for the upkeep of existing facilities because of its political mileage. Due to the decrepit condition of these systems, construction and rehabilitation would require substantial investments. The government not only has to contend with limited financial resources, but also its current financial practice does not even ensure that water charges, which are pooled into the provincial fund and not as a separate budget for operation and maintenance (O&M), are commensurate to the amount of water used or at least recover the costs for O&M.
The ADB experts have noted that the water is not priced according to its economic opportunity cost, resulting to misallocation of this scarce resource, water wastage, and inefficient water service delivery. For instance, sugarcane production, an intensive water-using crop, would have been uneconomical to cultivate if irrigation water was charged anything close to its economic price. Similarly, rice producers also benefit from under-pricing (rice is irrigated from tube-well water). However, in the present system, basmati rice producers receive transfer of resources from taxpayers.
Water and land use for agriculture are inextricably linked. Efficient use of water is strongly related to the crops that are cultivated, their intensity and yield levels.
Investments in water conservation techniques also hinge on the type of crops produced. They said that if water were appropriately priced, water-using crops such as sugar may not be economically competitive to produce. Instead, production of water-efficient crops like horticulture and fodder may have been encouraged. With transparent water and land use entitlements, crop diversification would have evolved and sustainable use of these resources would have been the normal practice. These in turn would stimulate the development of non-farm value addition activities.
ADB experts observed that an equally important lacuna is water use management. If efficiency in water use were to be improved, there is a need to identify and address the institutional weaknesses and governance-related issues that impede the implementation of an integrated water resource management approach. This approach will be urgently needed to rationally address the competing water uses and vested interest groups' concerns; define the roles and responsibilities of the different tiers of government involved in water management; provide incentive mechanisms for the development of markets for groundwater and the regulatory measures for the unhampered market for surface water; ensure participation of farmers' groups; and lay the governance reforms for transparency, accountability, improved economic incentives, and sustainable O&M.
In sum, ADB consultants have recommended that the challenges of ensuring sustainable use of water resources for development of agri-based value chains involve addressing the concerns on enhancing water availability through investments on infrastructure build-up, especially for water storage and rehabilitation; instituting governance and institutional reforms for implementation and enforcement of integrated water resource management; and maintaining resource integrity and productivity. The challenge is daunting considering that even under a low water demand scenario and with an assumption of increasing water efficiency by the year 2024/25, there would be a shortfall of around 23percent under existing supply scenario.
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