THIS is with reference to the article `Investing in food and water` (March 11) which rightfully pointed out the deficiencies of our agricultural practices, resulting in poor yield per acre.

Our weather, crops and sowing patterns are the same as that of our neighbour, but the produce per acre is massively different. Also, they use less water per acre in India and yet end up producing more. Things surely need to change.

I have a slightly different strategy in mind than what the said article presented. While it talked about a $10 billion potential investment by Saudi Arabia, I look inward and suggest that we do something ourselves. There is no denying that a $10bn investment in agriculture will be great, but there are many things that we can do ourselves with a fraction of this cost.

For example, we lose 12 million acre feet (MAF) of water through our watercourses. The proposed Kalabagh dam can store 6MAF only. So, we lose two Kalabagh dams worth of sweet water into the ground. Also, in most `loss-making` areas, the subsoil water is not sweet.

Most Western countries do not have watercourses; they use pipes instead. In Turkiye, they have converted all of their watercourses into pipes. India is followingsuit. All the water from the tubewell typically comes out of the six-inchdiameter pipe. This ends up in a hand-dug watercourse typically four feet wide and two feet deep.

It is prone to vegetation growth, grass and trees, with the result that the water not only overflows, it does not reach the tail end. The water theft is extremely easy. With a pipe in place, there will be no vegetation, no grass, no trees, no overflow and the water would reach the tailend.

The water from the six-inch-diameter tubewell outlet can easily flow in a 16-24-inch-diameter PVC pipe. We have several manufacturers of PVC pipes from Karachi to Peshawar who are doing it on a modest scale.

All we need to do is to just stop this leakage and use the 12MAF of sweet water. It can be done without any foreign exchange or loan from anyone.

S. Nay y ar Iqbal R aza Karachi