New geospatial system will better calculate crop losses to extreme weather and support efforts to tackle hunger
By Aamir Saeed
ISLAMABAD, Nov 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Pakistan has launched a state-of-the-art system to help farmers calculate their crop losses to extreme weather more accurately and support the government in tackling hunger and malnutrition.
Late last month, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) installed the geospatial crop forecasting system at the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) to improve the quality of agricultural statistics.
Muhammad Bashir, a 45-year-old farmer in the Narowal district of Punjab province, lost 12 acres (4.9 hectares) of his rice crop when it was washed away by flash floods in September.
"Erratic weather and flash floods hit our crops each year but there is no mechanism in place to get early warning and ascertain the exact loss," said Bashir, who owns 73 acres (29.5 hectares) of land.
Growers in flood-prone areas cannot earn enough to cover their outgoings because of regular disasters, and most even fail to repay bank loans due to crop damage, he said by telephone.
"If we get data on our crop yields and weather conditions well in advance, we can prepare a good budget for educating our children," he said. The government should introduce modern technology for the farming business, he suggested.
Pakistan's agriculture sector contributes a fifth of gross domestic product and generates work for just under half the country's labour force, according to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2013-14.
The recent floods damaged standing crops on 978,363 hectares (2.4 million acres) while estimates by government ministries and experts put losses to the economy at $14-15 million.
CHEAPER, BETTER DATA
Faisal Syed, project facilitator at the FAO, said the new geospatial system would help both the government and farmers get accurate and timely data on crop yields and expected losses in the case of natural disasters like floods and droughts.
Under the system, funded by the U.S. government, SUPARCO uses Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies to gather crop data.
Satellite imagery is taken twice a year, while field surveys are conducted during two cropping seasons in spring and autumn. SUPARCO then uses statistical models to estimate yields.
"The geospatial system will replace the archaic manual method of crop forecasting and help decrease costs of data collection," said Syed.
The system will initially cover only two provinces of Pakistan: Punjab and Sindh.
Floods wash away standing crops on millions of hectares each year in Pakistan, but the government has always lacked precise data on the damage to crops and yields, Syed added.
"A government cannot formulate cogent policies to address the issues of food security and malnutrition in the affected areas if it doesn't have proper data," he said.
TARGETED AID
The National Nutrition Survey 2013 showed that some 60 percent of Pakistan's population is food-insecure - lacking access to adequate supplies of nutritious food - and half of women and children in these households are malnourished.
An estimated 35 percent of child deaths under the age of five in Pakistan are linked to malnutrition.
Anwar Baig, a statistician at Crop Reporting Services Punjab, a government agency, said the system would benefit local growers - the end users of the information - by enabling them to plan the cultivation and harvest of different crops better.
Around 1,550 field officers have been deployed in all 36 districts of Punjab province to collect information about crops, expected yields and damage to harvests in the event of extreme weather, he said.
Using smart phones and tablets installed with an Android App, they feed data directly into the geospatial system in real time for further analysis.
"If the system works well, the government will be in a better position to compensate affected farmers for their losses and provide relief goods to people," Baig said.
The crop forecasting system may also help the authorities import staple foods in good time, if production of crops like wheat and rice looks set to fall short in any season, he said.
Baig stressed, however, that the project is still in the initial stages and it will take time to reap the full benefit.
CALL FOR INDEPENDENCE
Ibrahim Mughal, chairman of Agri Forum Pakistan, a body representing Pakistani farmers, said the federal and provincial governments set unrealistic targets for crop production each year so as to paint a positive picture of agriculture - which ultimately hurts the interests of growers.
The Crop Reporting Services department should be independent so it can adopt the geospatial system and relay accurate information to farmers free from government influence, he said.
"As long as the officers remain under pressure from the government, they cannot make public real data on the targets set for a crop and the expected yield," he said.
Political will should be focused rather on dealing with food security, malnutrition and erratic weather impacts, he said.
Mughal suggested the Punjab and Sindh governments should send crop data and weather forecasts to farmers each week via mobile phone to maximise the impact of the new system.
(Reporting by Aamir Saeed; editing by Megan Rowling)
Aamir Saeed is a journalist based in Islamabad, Pakistan. He can be reached at aamirsaeed@ymail.com
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