Sowing seeds of recovery in post-flood Pakistan

“My half-acre of paddy field, two hens and goat were washed away in the flooding,” reports Imam Bibi, a 60-year-old farmer from Hindu Wan village in Punjab, Pakistan. “This farming package comes as a blessing at this dismal time.”

Bibi was among the nearly 10,000 recipients of a seed and fertilizer package distributed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the province of Punjab, the site of more than half of the country’s cultivated land and where three quarters of the population depend upon farming for their livelihood.

The flooding that began in Pakistan last July destroyed 270,000 acres of arable land and disrupted the crop-planting cycle.

“Plantation of winter crops is critical to ensure food for the next cycle,” said Jean-Luc Stalon, UNDP Deputy Country Director. “We are providing US$550,000 to support flood-affected farmers in Punjab in planting winter crops such as wheat, barley, and oats.”

UNDP’s rapid support to farming communities in these areas was possible due to its presence in, and high level of expertise on, Punjab, where it has operated a land re-fertilization project with the provincial government since 2006.

Under the re-fertilization project, 125,000 acres of highly saline land have been rehabilitated through digging irrigation wells and fertilizing soil with minerals like gypsum. As a result, production levels for wheat and rice crops in the reclaimed area rose from zero to one tonne per acre.

While some of this progress was set back, UNDP quickly shifted priorities in the wake of the floods to meet the urgent needs of the tens of thousands of inhabitants of the 90 villages in Jhang and Sargodh, where more than 1,400 flood-affected households each received 50 kilos of seed and bags of urea-based fertilizer for more than 4,000 acres of crop plantation.

Such provisions are invaluable to recipients like Bibi, whose husband is too elderly and frail to make an income. Bibi plans to support her household by using the seed and fertilizer package she received from UNDP to re-cultivate her land, and she will also receive a livestock package, including two goats.

Facing a new season ahead, she says: “I am looking forward to a good wheat harvest in six months.”