Techical aspects
Irrigation
Main issues and findings
Investment in irrigation has been undertaken
to resolve two major related problems, surface and groundwater irrigation:
(i) the heavy loss in the water conveyance
system and the subsequent inequitable distribution of water among the
users, particularly between head and tail-end farmers; and
(ii) waterlogging and salinity.
In the late 1970s, IFAD supported public
sector programmes in tubewell development. At the time an important policy
shift aimed at phasing out these public programmes in favour of private
tubewell development was already taking place. The performance of the
IFAD project was, not surprisingly, as deficient as previous similar projects
which motivated the change in policy.
The subsequent involvement of IFAD
in private minor and micro-irrigation tubewells, through improved access
to credit, has contributed to the increase in agricultural production,
particularly in the case of small farmers.
IFAD contributed to the early attempts
at introducing participatory development in the irrigation sub-sector
from the very beginning of its programme in 1979. These efforts were constrained,
however, by the:
(i) non-conducive socio-political situation
in rural areas of the irrigation sector; and
(ii) insufficient experience of technical
implementing agencies in social organization activities.
While Water Users' Associations (WUAs)
were useful for the smooth implementation of on-farm water management
projects, they were not meant, by reason of their design to target the
poor specifically.
Sustainability of project benefits
has been difficult to ensure, particularly for public tubewells and structures.
Capital investment has been highly subsidized; cost recovery and the collection
of water charges are inadequate.
Recommendations
Because of the socio-political situation
and the land ownership patterns which exist in the Indus basin, there
is little room for reaching the poor through building and rehabilitating
irrigation infrastructure unless the projects:
(i) ensure that rehabilitation covers
the entire command areas of minor or distributary canals, instead
of renovating isolated water courses; and
(ii) support private investment in
underground water resources development (tubewells) at the tail-end
and possibly at the middle reaches of the schemes, where feasible.
41. IFAD should increase its assistance
to private minor irrigation through supervised credit. This is also consistent
with the search for greater efficiency in water resource use, leading
to higher agricultural productivity. Similarly, there are indications
that investment in irrigation channel rehabilitation and expansion in
area development schemes will have a high pay-off, although this is not
likely to be equitably distributed among various social groups.
Technology generation and dissemination
Main results
To meet the national objectives of
increased export earnings and increased self-sufficiency in food grains,
GOP has devoted most of its resources in the research and extension field,
to three major crops, cotton, rice, and wheat, primarily in the large
scale irrigation sub-sector.
The organization of research and extension
appears to be both complex and fragmented, a situation which inevitably
leads to inefficient allocation of resources and poor coordination between
independent structures. Moreover, scarce budgetary resources and qualified
staff have been unevenly distributed among the provinces.
IFAD-funded projects did help to increase
agricultural productivity. However, in this difficult institutional and
budgetary context, the increases have generally fallen short of targets.
In particular, extension services continue to lag behind and often do
not fulfil the advisory role the farming community desires. The agent
of change is often poorly qualified and ill-equipped to assist farmers
due to lack of superior knowledge and/or appropriate technical packages
and mobility. A focus on wealthier landholders is still predominant.
Livestock has been acknowledged by
landless and smallholders to be an economically efficient renewable resource
which can serve as surety, a source of immediate liquidity, use of surplus
farm labour and crop residues, and is therefore an aid to sustainable
development. Poor and landless people have complained, however, of a lack
of access to veterinary services supposedly aimed at them specifically.
Projects have generally ignored species other than cattle and buffalos,
particularly small ruminants.
46. Forestry activities have so far reached
all categories of farmers, including the landless. It is encouraging to
note that farmers are taking up forestry and are keen to diversify into
agro-forestry and horticulture-based systems, which will contribute to
long-term sustainability and environmental improvement. Further benefits
could be derived from a greater involvement of farmers' groups, as well
as individuals, in raising nurseries, tree plantation and management.
On the availability of technical packages
suitable for the target groups
First generation projects assumed that
appropriate technology was basically available. They closely linked the
dissemination of technology to the provision of a key input or means of
production such as water, finance, mechanical equipment or seasonal inputs.
In most cases they provided very limited support to the extension wing
of a national institution whose purpose was not primarily extension. In
the second generation projects, resource allocation for the generation
and dissemination of technology has progressively increased, assuming
an important share in participatory projects, though some wide variations
were noticed from one project to another.
Experience shows that it was unrealistic
to assume that there were readily available appropriate technologies for
dissemination. This assumption has overlooked the diversities of agricultural
production in Pakistan, a product of heterogenous ecological zones, ranging
from rainfed to fully irrigated, with various elevations, landownership
patterns, traditions, cultural traits, and socio-economic status, of the
landless and women.
A major intervention to improve the
net income of smallholders is to increase the cropping intensity. This
is possible only, however, if technological solutions are available which
permit the growing of different crops in sequence or in relay cropping,
keeping in mind the weather conditions, especially temperature, which
determine the crop sowing, growth and harvesting periods. Often the improved
varieties available need further genetic modification to enable them to
be used in an intensive cropping pattern. This requires further research
to produce seedlings for transplanting (in case of rice and vegetables)
which would prolong the growing period in the field, especially in cold
environments like Chitral.
There is a need for greater awareness
among designers and project staff of the potential synergy among crops,
livestock, and forestry under various levels of labour availability on
the farm. A concentration on individual components limits the ability
of project staff to understand the constraints which affect farmers' responses
to proposed innovation. For example, farmers' reluctance to adopt HYV
of wheat that produce less straw is due to the value of straw as animal
fodder.
On extension methods
IFAD-financed projects, especially
those that have been cofinanced, initially adopted the expensive, resource-intensive
training and visit (T&V) method of extension which does not prove
to be consistent either with GOP budgetary constraints or with IFAD's
intention of reaching its target groups, namely small farmers, tenants,
the landless and women.
Subsequently, IFAD distanced itself
from this approach with the adoption of demand-driven extension. Participatory
extension methods represent a significant qualitative improvement. The
selection by farmers' groups of their own representatives for apprenticeship
enhances the value of the service, by demonstrating that ordinary members
can acquire the expertise, and by its availability on a continuous basis
since the selected member of the group lives in the village.
Recommendations
In the past, project support to institutional
capacity-building in the field of research and extension tended to focus
on physical facilities and equipment, with little attention given to setting
up specific delivery objectives at the farm level. In Pakistan, the multiplicity
of research and extension agencies and the existence of overlapping mandates
between them poses the problem of the selection of which line agency should
be supported by a given project. At a minimum, project designers should
be aware of the full range of alternatives before making a choice. As
it will be, more often than not, difficult to truly assess the respective
strengths and weaknesses of alternative institutional vehicles, the contractual
approach should be generalized and conditions for fair competition between
concerned agencies for project support be created. This implies setting
clearly spelled-out links between project support and effective results
on the ground. If such a contractual approach proves efficient, it could
gradually form the basis of projects' contribution to local institutional
capacity. In the longer term, the generalization of this approach could
substitute more conventional forms of project-supported institutional
capacity-building.
In this respect, it is worth recalling
some general principles that apply in Pakistan like everywhere else in
the world. The availability and relevance of an "improved technical
package" must primarily be considered from the farmers' perspective.
While the specialist basically judges a given technical package in terms
of productivity and income increases, the farmer also looks at
its utility, opportunity cost, and associated risks. Unless it can be
demonstrated, in actual farming conditions, that a proposed technical
package is competitive with best farming practices in a given area, the
package may not be adopted by the intended beneficiaries or by the target
group.
The implications of the above considerations
on project design are multiple. Firstly, project designers should no longer
assume that appropriate technology, particularly technology specific to
the conditions and activities of the target groups, is broadly available.
Secondly, whenever IFAD considers an intervention in a new area, it should
commission a thorough assessment of existing farming systems with particular
reference to farmers' practices, constraints and productivity. This assessment
would also include an analysis of the availability of technical solutions.
Particular attention should be paid to the availability of on-farm trials
and to their results. The best timing for such an assessment to take place
is between inception and formulation of the project. Thirdly, the phasing
of project activities and the estimates of benefit flows should fully
recognize the need for a lead time before adaptive research results are
made available to the farmers through extension services. Experience shows
this is almost never achieved within the project life when construction
of physical facilities is a prerequisite for adaptive research activities
to take place. Finally, it is strongly recommended to build into project
design a strong monitoring and technical support capacity as far as adaptive
research and extension activities are concerned. A practical way to do
it is to link, through contractual agreements, the new project with a
pilot project or any relevant source of TA that have the required expertise.
These lessons, it is believed, have wider relevance than the particular
context from which they have been derived.
The projects (including those in the
early stages of implementation) should concentrate on developing packages
to suit the specific needs of the poor. The landless and rural women depend
on dairy animals and poultry; therefore technical packages related to
their nutrition, health care, husbandry and product handling should be
given priority.
The availability of arable land is
a limiting factor in increasing the net family incomes of small farmers.
Since horizontal expansion is not viable, the only possibility for increasing
net family incomes is to make the land-use pattern more remunerative by
introducing higher value crops, increasing cropping intensities especially
when irrigation is provided to the predominantly rainfed areas, and by
increasing yields. This is possible through the introduction of short
duration HYV varieties, inter-cropping or relay cropping.
Participatory extension methods which
have so far yielded some positive results in Pakistan, should be further
supported by IFAD, and their implementation closely monitored and carefully
assessed in preparation for expanded application in the future. To further
enhance extension effectiveness, a coordinated approach in which Social
Organizers (SOs) and representatives of various departments (extension,
horticulture, livestock and forestry) conduct joint field visits should
be adopted.
There is a need for some special attention
to women's extension services. More efforts should be made to recruit
female extensionists for both crops and livestock services, since male
extensionists stand few chances of successfully reaching women directly.
There are already experiences such as female mobile credit officers (MCOFs),
in the dissemination of credit and ladies' social organizers in the organization
of women. It is possible that these fragmented activities will soon reach
the stage where they will be able to provide services to women on a regular
basis.
Soil and water conservation
The benefits of those projects which
adopted low-cost measures for soil and water conservation have spread
to a large number of farmers in IFAD's target groups. In spite of these
evident socio-economic benefits of small field structures, there is always
some risk of project activities tending towards the interests of a few
influential, and generally affluent, landowners. The construction of mini-dams
and ponds carried out under the Second Barani Area Development Project
is illustrative of such a risk.
The soil and water conservation activities
on farmers' fields have an evident impact on agricultural production and
environmental protection. Overall soil conservation strategy should concentrate
on measures which improve infiltration and moisture storage. The Master
Plan for the Barani Area, being compatible with IFAD's goals of specificity,
should continue to serve as the fundamental guideline for present and
future IFAD interventions in the area.
Rural infrastructure
For many years, rural water supply
has been considered a basic social and health utility which governments
are obliged to provide. Recent policy changes, from free social utility
to services for which the users must pay, enhance the prospect of sustainability.
But to ensure success, GOP should involve the beneficiaries in the design
and implementation of these schemes and support grass roots organizations
to enable them to carry out these new responsibilities.
The farm-to-market roads included in
IFAD-financed projects have been soundly selected, particularly with the
clear criteria set for that purpose. Implementation by the Construction
and Works (C&W) Departments has generally been smooth and maintenance
does not pose serious difficulties since it is undertaken by these Departments.
The approach followed in Chitral district, which relied on the active
participation of the beneficiary population through Village Organizations
(VOs), could serve as a model for similar future undertakings.
Provided relevant and clear criteria
for the selection of rural infrastructure are identified and adhered to,
there is no doubt that rural infrastructure is a major determinant of
development, particularly in remote rural areas. The demand for infrastructure
activities can be expected to grow as IFAD continues to develop village-based
initiatives; the Fund should therefore be ready to support these type
of activities to whatever extent possible.
