Pakistan Council for Research and Water Resources (PCRWR) has planned to expand the scope of `Irrigation Advisory SMS Service for the Farmers’ by increase the number of registered farmers from existing 20,000 up to 1, 00,000 soon. The service was launched on April 18, 2016, as an outcome of international collaboration extended by the University of Washington and NASA with an aim to help reduce overwatering and enhance crop yields for Pakistani farmers. The University of Washington is providing real-time daily Potential Evapotranspiration and precipitation for entire Pakistan using NASA’s remotely sensed data. PCRWR determined crop coefficients (Kc) for different crops in different agro-climatic zones of Pakistan. “PCRWR has planned to extend its Irrigation Advisory Service to 1, 00,000 farmers now while in the long run, the council envisions extending it to all farmers of irrigated areas through international and national coordination”, Chairman PCRWR, Dr. Muhammad Aslam Tahir stated this while talking to APP.
The service has already been informing the farmers of 41 districts (irrigated areas) about their net weekly irrigation requirements, considering Evapotranspiration (ET) and precipitation. Dr. Aslam said around 90 percent of the water is consumed in the agriculture sector of the country and most of it is wasted due to improper utilization.
The objective behind initiating this service was to conserve this water by educating farmers about actual water requirement for their crops.
The farmers, through this service, get weekly information on how much water their crop is needed and if there is chances of any rain or not during the next week.
