91788
Forming a Partnership for Farmers in Pakistan                                                               September 17, 2002
                          Climatic conditions in Pakistan’s largest and least developed province, Balochistan, range from merely dry to
                          extremely arid.  Soils are mostly thin, low in organic matter and prone to erosion.  Yet agriculture is the mainstay
                          of Balochistan’s economy, employing 67 percent of the labor force, and the lack of water is severely constraining
                          agricultural development.

                        In this challenging environment, the Pakistani government is responding through the Balochistan Community
                        Irrigation and Agriculture Project.  Funded primarily by the World Bank and the government of the Netherlands,
                        the project is designed to benefit about 7,000 mostly poor families, who farm roughly 4,800 acres of land in the
rugged terrain of southwestern Pakistan. 

Typical of the project’s success is the experience in Pandran, an isolated village in a hilly, barren region, 200 kilometers from Quetta, the
capital of Balochistan.  Before the project began, farmers had to dig channels along and across a dry riverbed to bring spring water to
their fields.

Today, much water was lost along the way, and flash floods often washed away the channels.  The villagers still get water from the same
spring, but now it is conveyed to the fields through masonry-lined channels and across the riverbed by three aqueducts.  A siphon and a
raised channel provide water to new areas, and diversion boxes have been installed to allocate water equitably among users.  In addition,
a pipeline with 46 standpipes has been laid to provide clean drinking water to the village. There is now an assured water supply to about
200 acres and 79 families benefit.

Thanks to the improved irrigation system, farmers in Pandran are switching to commercial orchard crops, and the piped water supply has
helped to reduce the incidence of water-borne diseases.  The farmers constructed 25 percent of the channel works themselves, and a
local contractor built the rest.  The government granted the funds for the piped water supply, while the farmer’s organization paid 17.5
percent of the capital cost for the irrigation system.  Altogether, the entire plan cost the equivalent of only $385,000.


Related Links:
   Pakistan
     Balochistan Community Irrigation and Agriculture Project

 

Updated: September 2002