A six-year project will be implemented by the KP Irrigation Department, which will be helpful to increase crop production through water management by up to 50 percent.
The project titled “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Irrigated Agriculture Improvement Project” will be implemented with the financial support of the World Bank.
The secretary of the provincial agriculture department Dr. Muhammad Israr said that water resources management strategy will improve a total 14,260 community irrigation system. Improved irrigation will bring 766,000 acres of quality land under cultivation. A total of water storage tanks will also be made that will be helpful in cultivating 25,000 acres of barren land.
He further said, “Under the project, 500 laser guided land levelers will be provided to the farmers on a 50 percent subsidy. Besides this, the installation of a high-efficiency system on 11,650 acres of land across the province will help increase crop production by 30 to 50 percent. It will also result in saving water by 50 percent and growing high-value crops”.
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65 percent of people in KP are involved in livestock and many of them are involved in agriculture who will be the main beneficiaries of the proposed increase in crop production through water management. This is why the environment, water, and land of province urgently needed to have a proper strategy to bear agriculture crop production.
He also said that there is a sufficient amount of water in KPK currently but saving it is necessary for future planning and bringing more barren land under cultivation is another significant necessity.
He added that at present, the province has a total of 76,000 water channels, of which 26,000 water channels have been lined and improved while another 11,000 channels will be improved under the National Emergency Programme.
A landlord of Mardan, Syed Alam said that KPK farmers are unaware of water requirements of different types of soil. According to him, training farmers of agriculturist’s course is highly important in the project.
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