MULTAN: About 30,000 acres of barren land are being made fertile annually in Punjab, however, the speed is extremely slow as the province has over 3.8 million acres of barren or non-agricultural land.

“About 3.8-million-acre land is barren or non-agricultural soil in Punjab province which could be converted into fertile land in order to benefit country’s agriculture sector”, said an official sources in Agriculture Engineering Department.

According to official sources, the total cultivation area in the province is about 50.7 million acres. Although, the steps are being taken to convert barren land or non-agricultural land into fertile soil but the work speed for conversion of barren land to fertile land is considered slow as only 25,000 to 30,000 acres are converted to fertile land annually.

The department had prepared over 1.65 million acres so far. Similarly, the process for conversion of barren land to fertile area was heading forward smoothly.

The only way for preparation of barren land is use of bulldozers, the sources stated. Bulldozer is a heavy machine that helps prepare pieces of land for agricultural work more easily than manual human labour, improving the efficiency and cost of the preparation process. The Agriculture Engineering

Department have 297 Bulldozers for this purpose and provided its services to farmers for levelling or preparation of the land. The use of bulldozer is equally beneficial for preparation of soil in both, mountains and plain areas.

The increase in cultivation area is vital for improving agricultural productions.

About other utilization of bulldozers, the sources maintained that the bulldozers were also used for making embankments especially during floods. Using a bulldozer ensures the soil is well levelled and in this way the target plants can grow well on flat land. Levelling of the soil also brings uniformity and spreads the soil evenly over the newly prepared land. Levelling also makes the sowing process easier for farmers. Similarly, mostly, the new agriculture pieces of lands are not connected to good transport systems. A bulldozer can clear the paths which connect the new farm to main roads and improve transport links.