The Sindh government has neglected soil since long time and failed to link it with food, water, climate, biodiversity and life.
This was stated at a seminar organised by the Society for Environmental Actions Reconstruction & Humanitarian response (SEARCH) in collaboration with OXFAM Grow, Action Aid, Global Soil Partnership (GSP), NGOs Development Society (NDS) and Peoples Network on Food & Agriculture (PNFA) at SDE-SPO Hall, on Saturday to mark the World Soil Day.
Prof Dr Inayat Rajpar, Chairman Soil Department of Sindh Agriculture University TandoJam, said: “soil is the basis for food, feed, fuel and fibre production and for services to ecosystems and human well-being. He said: “It is the reservoir for at least a quarter of global biodiversity and requires the same attention as the ground biodiversity.”
He said: “Soils play a key role in the supply of clean water and resilience to floods and droughts. The largest store of terrestrial carbon is in the soil so that its preservation may contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation.”
Prof Dr Ismail Kumbhar of the Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam said: “Soils have been neglected for too long. We fail to connect soil with our food, water, climate, biodiversity and life. We must invert this tendency and take up some preserving and restoring actions.
Prof Dr Islamuddin Majeedano of Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam said the World Soil Day reminded them that it was time to focus on small farmers, especially farmers under marginal farming conditions to revitalise crop diversity through re-channelling the financial resources for participatory plant breeding, revival of traditional crops, organic farming and practices useful for revival of biological diversity.
Waheed Jamali, Executive Director SEARCH Pakistan, said unavailability of sustainable agriculture and land use policy was responsible for the development of twin menace of water-logging and salinity.
He said the extent of water logging and salinity was more in Sindh than elsewhere in Pakistan. “About 70 percent of the cultivable area in Sindh is vulnerable to water-logging and salinity. As a downstream region, Sindh is at the receiving end of 80 million tons of salt together with 120 million cubic meters of salts annually from the upstream regions of its course.”
On the eve of World Soil Day, Mustafa Baloch, Regional Head SPO, Abdul Razzaque Umrani Regional Manager HANDS, Punhal Sario President Sindh Hari Porhyat Council and Prof Dr Fateh Mohmmad Soomoro said, “Out of the total cultivable command area of 13.45 million acres in Sindh province, only 1.85 million acre is under the treatment of fresh non-saline ground water.”
During discussion, they stated in such an environment, water-logging arising from insufficient management of canal irrigation and inadequate drainage practices aggravate the salinity problem by raising the ground water table.
“In Sindh, the areas cultivated by canals have declined from 6.6 million acres to 5.3 million acres during the year 1997-98. Salinity and water-logging has affected the Sindh province as more than 57 percent of the cultivable land of Sindh is under water-logging, whereas 41 percent is under the influence of salinity.”
They urged the Sindh government to introduce sustainable agriculture and land use policy immediately and resolve agriculture, land and soil degradation issues for good of people and country.
