Pakistan-a country of enormous natural human resources–faces several environmental challenges such as deforestation, water logging and salinity, soil erosion, water and air pollution. This creates difficulties which affect the poor in two ways, firstly it prevents them from investing in conservation of natural resources which is the source of their incomes and secondly, it forces them to interact less profitably with degraded environment.

 Problems such as water shortages, climate changes, and degradation of land prone to salinity and drought, scarcity of fuel-wood and building timber sometime push the poor into an impasse, as they traditionally have little access to the institutions.

 The present study highlights important success stories, which have unmasked the vicious cycle of the poverty-environment nexus and established innovative ways to address it. This document details the reasons behind the increasing poverty and environmental degradation and the factors that most affect it. Reversing these trends is important and must be done in a manner that causes least disturbance to the communities. There is little doubt that income improvement through community participation complemented by training in environment friendly methodologies that are generally cost effective is the best way forward.

 This study not only identifies the dynamics of the poverty environment nexus in Pakistan but also suggests the ways and means to resolve the important issues, as understanding the dynamics of a problem is the first step towards finding a solution. [View full book]

Increasingly, poverty is becoming one of the most important issues that Pakistan is facing. About one-third of the population is living below the poverty line. As most of the people are living in the rural areas and are engaged in agriculture as their primary means of livelihood, this sector needs special attention in poverty alleviation efforts.

Transfer of technology to the end users is an important aspect of research and development.  In developing countries it often takes unexpectedly longer time to transfer technology to the farmers.  The book on Technologies for Sustainable Agriculture is a collection of 27 papers on seed, crop, soil, water, fertilizer and pest management and animal and health nutrition written by eminent Pakistani scientists affiliated with renowned national institutions.

The crisis in water management in Pakistan has been recognized for quite some time now. The country irrigation system is insolvent, requires a continuous infusion of financial resources, and its management is widely seen to be arbitrary and corrupt. Also, there are no formal linkages between water management and agricultural development. Finally, increasing environmental degradation (prominent in which are the problems of waterlogging and salinity) and emerging water scarcity have put the system under a great deal of stress.

 Clearly, for an agrarian country like Pakistan, these issues are absolutely critical, a question of survival. Any break in the system will threaten the food security of the population, especially that of vulnerable groups.

 Different actors in the water management and agrarian scene have suggested a number of solutions, depending on their background and interests. The most common suggestion -one might say that this is, in fact, almost a fetish – is for increased investment in infrastructure. Others say that what we need is organizational reform. Given the recent enthusiasm for private enterprise, a growing number of yet others suggest that the key to greater efficiency in the management of water and agrarian production lies in the privatisation of hitherto public resources. Finally, those who have made great gains in other areas through community development insist that the only sustainable solution lies in building the capacity of communities to collectively and responsibly manage their affairs.

 None of these solutions are entirely irrelevant. There is some truth in each of them. Unfortunately, there has been little recognition of this basic holistic truth, and the different actors have worked at cross-purposes to each other. There is now an urgent need to bring together and synthesis these various perspectives and solutions.

 It was to make such a synthesis and collaboration possible that we brought together engineers, agriculturists, water managers, community developers, policy makers, etc., and chose the theme of the “On-Farm Water Management (OFWM) Programme” to give the discussion some focus. It is now two decades since OFWM first began in Pakistan, and though not without controversy, the programme is widely held to have been relatively successful. The purpose of the conference then was to take advantage of the considerable experience that the programme has accumulated, evaluate and assess the pros and cons of different approaches, and figure out ways to build on its strengths and overcome its weaknesses. The present anthology is a collection of papers representing all the various perspectives of actors in water management present at the conference. [Full Report]