August, 31: IUCN Pakistan Balochistan Programme's ‘High Efficient Irrigation System (bubbler technology) was inaugurated by the Governor of Balochistan, Mr. Owais Ahmad Ghani. Prominent farmers, number of Agriculture extension wing staff members and other stakeholders from public as well as civil society sector attended the inauguration ceremony. While addressing the inauguration ceremony, the Governor highlighted the existing water crisis, feasible approaches and the initiative the government is taking and needs to take.

The outreach workshop and inauguration ceremony was purposefully arranged with Agriculture department which resulted in the full participation of the extension wing's staff led by the secretary himself.

Importantly, the corporate sector was involved in the activities as two important vendors (Rainmakers and Agro Asahi) were invited to display their products for information of the participating farmers.

The chief guest and the participants took great interest in the project. This was reflected from their feed back given to the representatives of PTV, Radio, BBC, Balochistan Times, Jung, Daily Mirror, Balochistan Express and Mashriq who were present in the workshop. Two farmers were given shields of performance for having their substantial holdings on high efficient irrigation system. The president Zamindar Action committee, Secretary P&DD and Secretary Forest also showed keen interest in the project.

The IUCNP's Balochistan programme has successfully installed the first high efficiency irrigation demonstration project in Balochistan almost three months back, The system has been installed on 5-acre of private farmers land with apple orchard on cost sharing basis; the farmer has paid 30% of the capital cost. The aim was to popularize the same with the local farmers to achieve greater water use efficiency in the scenario of extreme water scarcity.

The notable difference between this demo project and the previous ones has been that the trickle irrigation has been replaced with the bubbler irrigation, which is more suitable for the grown trees (over two years of age) and the flow is more visible. Further the system has been installed on the cost-sharing basis to create awareness. The farmer has been involved in all the stages of the project development and installation. He has been fully trained in the operation, maintenance, and irrigation scheduling, so that he can independently run the system.