Pakistan needs to adopt modern farming tech to save water & money, ICARDA

The need of adopting modern technologies in every field of life is an undeniable fact. New technologies help a lot by providing effective tools and methods which result in saving cost. Dr. Abdul Majid, country manager of the International Centre for Agriculture Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) has said that latest technologies of farming and water must be adopted in Pakistan to save effort, time and money.

Pakistan is a fertile land for farming and agriculture and has a great potential in this field. Unfortunately, most of the dry areas in the country are of no use due to the lack of a proper mechanism of providing water in these regions. These regions are particularly associated with a larger province of the country i.e. Sindh. During a recent meeting held with Agriculture Service Providers (ASPs) in Sindh, Dr. Majid emphasized on the need of the adoption of new tools to encounter problems of the country.

While talking with ASPs of the Jamshoro district at the U.S-Pakistan Centre for Advanced Studies in Water (USPCAS-W), MUET, Dr. Majid talked about the availability of the duplicate of the Banana Tree Shredder in the country. According to him,

“Through this machine, the residual of banana trees could be composed of organic fertilizer, which is very beneficial for the soil health and also can be used by farmers in their crops.”

Dr. Majid told the participants of the meeting that this technology will be very useful in the farming sector. Using ridge sowing of wheat, over 30% of water can be saved. The ridge sowing technology uses a special seeder which works with a special machinery. The machine cuts the irrigation furrows and sows crops’ seeds on the ridges at the same time. Using modern technology will not only resolve water problem in dry areas but will also result in better growth of crops.