Rainwater Management in Cotton Fields to Minimize Impacts of Climate Change (Pilot Project)

Objectives:

The key development objective of the project is to safeguard the cotton crop from negative impacts of excessive rainfalls vis-à-vis climate change to optimize its productivity. The project would have following main objectives.

  1. Protect the cotton crop from extreme rainfall events/ impacts of climate change to minimize damages.
  2. Produce conducive growing environment for cotton crop by removing excess rainwater from cotton fields.
  3. Encourage farmers to grow cotton by incentivizing them for rainwater management.
  4. Build cotton growers’ capability for better rainwater management to get optimum crop yields.

Components:

  1. Creation of awareness among farming community and their capacity building to adopt appropriate measures for removal of excess rainwater from cotton fields during monsoon to minimize damages.
  2. Construction of 105 rainwater harvesting ponds to collect excess rainwater from cotton fields during monsoon.
  3. Development of 70 sunken fields located at lower end of cotton fields on cotton growing farms to collect excess rainwater.
  4. Provision of 250 portable water pumping system to cotton growers for removing excess standing water from cotton fields and its collection in water storage pond for irrigation and other purposes subsequently.

Gestation Period:

            Three (03) years (2016-17 to 2018-19)

Financial Outlay (Rs. Million):              

Total:                                        60.723

Government Share:                 34.835

Farmers’ Contribution:             25.888         

Location:

            Seven (7) leading cotton growing districts of the Punjab province including Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, R.Y. Khan, Lodhran, Vehari, Khanewal and Multan.