The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of US$ 42.9 million to provide reliable irrigation for farmlands and non-cultivated lands in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of the country.
In a statement issued by the bank on Wednesday, ADB Principal Natural Resources and Agriculture Specialist Donneth Walton said that irrigated farmlands in FATA will boost productivity and enable farmers to earn higher incomes by producing higher-value crops, including vegetables. He said that the facility will reduce poverty and boost household food security in these areas spread over 27,000 square kilometres.
The project area consists of three of seven FATA agencies including Bajaur, Khyber and Mohmand with a population of 2.6 million whose vast majority depends on agriculture, livestock and natural resources for their livelihood, he added. He further said that poor water resource management has become a major obstacle to increasing productivity and improving the living conditions of the FATA inhabitants.
Due to low rainfall, many farmers in the project area rely on rainfed subsistence agriculture, which produces food staples such as wheat and maize, he added.
He said that under the project, irrigated agriculture in FATA will be expanded through better use of the region’s surface water resources instead of building costly water infrastructure adding that the project will also use simple and small irrigation schemes that can be maintained by the local communities, including small gravity dams.
The project will also improve farm water management through activities such as terracing and land levelling, and watershed management through afforestation of the degraded watersheds, he added.
He said that the project, which is due for completion in March 2020, is funded by ADB’s concessional Asian Development Fund and counterpart funds from the Government of Pakistan amounting $4.9 million.
