EU, WWF launch BMP for Cotton & Sugarcane in Pakistan
11 October, 2006
BAHAWALPUR: The European Union Commission and WWF have formally launched four year project "Better Management Practices for Water Thirsty Crops" worth one million Euros to ensure sustainable sources of freshwater to support the livelihoods of poor communities in Pakistan. This project will create a mechanism for increasing water availability and reducing pollution by decreasing the amount of water and pesticide use in Cotton and Sugarcane production. EU provides the funds to the tune of 0.75 million Euros and the implementing partner WWF for this project provides remaining 0.25 million Euros. The project aims to promote better management practices on Cotton and Sugarcane that improves environmental quality and enhances the livelihoods of the farmers. The objectives of the project will be achieved by developing and implementing appropriate "ON farm" Better Management Practices in Faisalabad and Bahawalpur. It focuses discourage access use of pesticides sprays in Cotton fields and encourage natural way of farming for these crops. While speaking at the formally inauguration ceremony of the project which was largely attended by the local cotton growers and stakeholders, the Head of European Union Commission Pakistan, Michael Dale said that agriculture and water has become an intertwined issue and lack of sustainable practices that are employed in agriculture such as excessive use of irrigation, imbalance use of fertilizers, irrational use of pesticides, health impact on the farming communities are a few to mention. He said that this project would contribute towards elimination of the just spoken perils to the environment. He said that for the improvement of farmers livelihood and environment it was necessary to promote natural way of farming on modern lines so we can save farm and farmers. He said that training of farmers through farmers field schools and building the capacity of farmer organizations through training of trainers would be a prosperous step forward creating the field trained human resources in agriculture sector which could contribute in sustainable development. He said that a recent completed European Commission regional project on IPM implementer by FAO has proved the training of farmers through farmer’s field schools, which have achieved remarkable results in the cotton growing areas of Pakistan. He said that the project addressed the issues of sustainable agriculture and rural development, environment protection, trade, human health and most of all hopes for the poor through quality farmer education. He said that on the success of this project the government of Pakistan has launched its own programme on IMP. Mr. Dale expressed hope that the partnership of this programme with Agriculture departments would bring good results in terms of testing the innovative better management practices and their wider dissemination to resource poor farmers living even in the remote areas. Earlier, Project Director Hammad Naqi Khan gave a detailed briefing about the project and said that though the project has been started for last nine months but today it was formally launched with first batch of trained farmers for better management practices for water thirty crops. He said that the project would promote Better Management Practices (BMPs) by small and large scale sugarcane and cotton farmers in Bahawalpur and Faisalabad by 2010. These BMP centers in Bahawalpur are addressing the level of water used, the amount of pesticides and chemical fertilizers applied and the variety of seeds used in the project. He said that through this project, the farmers are mobilizing to reduce pesticide on Cotton fields and reduce use of chemical fertilizers by Cotton and sugarcane growers. The representative of Farmers’ Welfare Association Bahawalpur said that the yield has increased due to the BMP implementation. We used to spray ten times which was very expensive and now we spray twice and cotton is softer and whiter, eventually easier to sell in the market. Dr. Iftikhar Ahmed, DG WWF Pakistan Ali Asghar Habib and Deputy Director WWF Derk Kuiper also spoke on the occasion.
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