FARMERS in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are worried about the future of their crops owing to current dry spell coupled with a sharp decline in water supplies from canals and watercourses.With no rains forecast for another couple of weeks, it is feared that wheat crop and vegetables cultivated in central KP irrigated areas could suffer a slow growth. Barani (rain-fed) areas have also taken a hit due to the dry spell.

Though wheat crop in irrigated areas served by canals has grown well so far, things could turn awry because of water shortages in the canal system.

Rains are essential to farmers during this part of the year. Rains make up for water shortages during winter when canal discharges drop significantly.

However, nature has not been kind to small growers this season. December went by with no rains in most of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. As a result, signs of wheat crop under a possible termite attack, stated to in the offing, have started becoming visible in the rain-fed areas of the province, ruining small grow-ers` hopes for a better crop in the coming harvest.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa produces over one million tonnes of wheat annually. According to the official record, 52 per cent of the wheat production comes from the rain-fed areas and the remaining from the irrigated area that relies heavily on the canals.

Irrigation water flows dipped significantly during the past few weeks after the provincial irrigation department started operating canals on a rotation basis apparently to maintain a balance between demand and supply of water.

This becomes essential during winter. All major rivers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including River Swat, River Kabul, and Chitral River have been undergoing seasonal water shortages these days due to winter. This has negatively impacted canal water flows as well.

According to officials, the current aggregate water flows in the province`s 13 canals have gone down to 6000-7000 cusecs, far less than the normal flows that range between 44,000 cusecs and 60,000 during peak summer.

The exercise to run canals on `rotation (called War-Bundi in Pashto) aims at making efficient use of the available water, managing it also for the benefit of growers at the tail-end of the irrigation canals.

To the farmers` bad luck, the `rotation` system becomes operational at a time when the speed of water flow in canals also declines due to piling up of silt.

The rotation, according to officials, helps to maintain a certain speed of water flow so as to ensure that water reaches farms at the tail-end ofthe canal system.

However, farmers are not satisfied. The rotation system has its own inadequacies as the irrigation department`s field-staff holds the sway. Farmers complain that the authorities favour some areas at the cost of others. Usually, canals are operated on a weekly basis. Operating a canal for one extra day translates into distortions for farmers falling under the catchment area of some other canal as it remains closed for one extra day. Similarly, less water flows into canals to provide other areas with more water.

Adding insult to injury, water pilferage by unscrupulous farmers adds to the problem. Many tail-end farmers usually do not receive water supplies because the water-thieves illegally divert water to their fields.

Farmers in Dera Ismail Khan have just given second water to their wheat crop hoping things won`t go ugly in the month-long closure of canals due to the annual cleaning campaign.

`The sub-soil moisture is good, growth would go well for a couple of weeks after which water would be needed either from canals or rains,` said Iqbal Khan, a farmer from Gandi Omer Khan, Dera Ismail Khan.

However, farmers in central KP would need to use pesticides to protect their standing crop from the termite attack because of the current dry spell and marginal to zero canal water flows.

`Small farmers usually don`t go for pesticide sprays, it escalates their costs,` said Rizwanullah, a grower from Mardan district. They prefer to let the crop suffer slow growth.•