ADB approves $275mln loan for surface irrigation system

ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Friday approved a $275 million loan to help Pakistan build a surface irrigation system to increase agricultural production and improve food security.

The fund will be disbursed for Jalalpur irrigation project in the Jhelum and Khushab districts in Punjab. “The project will build a new seasonal irrigation system and convert over 68,000 hectares of less productive, predominantly rain-fed land to irrigated land by drawing water from the Jhelum River, one of the tributaries of the Indus River,” Manila-based lender said in a statement.

It said the project will construct a diversion structure, a 117-kilometer main canal, 97-km secondary and tertiary canals, and 485 watercourses. It will also assist in forming 485 water user associations (WUAs) and involve them in planning, designing, and constructing watercourses.

The WUAs and the farmers will be trained to improve their agriculture and water management capacity. ADB said the project will introduce advanced technologies like laser land leveling and high-efficiency irrigation systems.

About 660 agricultural demonstration plots will be established, and 6,000 farm households will learn climate-smart agriculture practices and more profitable farm management. The project is expected to benefit 384,000 people, it added.

“Having a sufficient and effective irrigation system is fundamental in the development of Pakistan’s agriculture sector—a significant driver of the country’s economy,” the statement quoted Ryutaro Takaku, principal water resources specialist at ADB’s Central and West Asia Department as saying.

“ADB’s support will help increase agricultural production and improve food security in Pakistan.” Agriculture sector contributes 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product with Punjab contributing more than 80 percent of agricultural output. Because of the country’s semi-arid climate, more than 90 percent of agriculture output depends on irrigation.

Meanwhile, Asian Development Bank, in a report early this week, said the level of food security in Pakistan is one of the lowest in the region. “For most of the food items consumed, Pakistan has a high level of food self-sufficiency (around 100 percent or higher),” the Bank said in the Food Insecurity in Asia report.

“Despite the generally high SSRs (self-sufficiency ratio) in most food items, the prevalence of undernourishment is still tenaciously high in Pakistan.” Asian Development Bank said Asia accounts for 65.6 percent of the chronically undernourished population in the world.

Pakistan managed to reduce the proportion of undernourished in the total population by 12.4 percent (from 25.1 percent in 1990–1992 to 22 percent in 2014–2016, it added. But, it said most of the key indicators concerning food security, including dietary energy, average protein and fat supply, dietary energy requirement and its supply adequacy and price volatility point to the low level of food security

The lender attributed the low level of food security in the country to high level of poverty incidence and corruption and political instability. “To improve its future food security, Pakistan is facing formidable challenges in a number of areas.

In particular, it faces significant challenges of poor governance and severe corruption, lack of economic growth, and lack of security within the country and on the border,” it said.

“Pakistan has to overcome these challenges in order to achieve durable societal development outcomes that are fundamental to achieving stable economic growth and in turn to improving its future food security.”