Role of engineering for the development of rainfed agriculture in Pakistan- A review
Paper Details
Role of engineering for the development of rainfed agriculture in Pakistan- A review
Abstract
The major problems of rainfed areas soil is low moisture content, topography, low soil fertility, uneven distribution of rainfall, soil erosion which leads to flooding and resultantly causes huge loses to agriculture and infrastructure. This situation often leads to the migration of local communities living in low land areas. To minimize the above mentioned problems it is need of the hour to apply engineering principles which could reduce these impacts. Deep tillage saves water in sub-soil to fulfill the crop requirements during the drought period. Precision land leveling reduces risk of runoff which required heavy earth moving machinery. Engineers may design high efficiency irrigation system, farm roads, farm buildings, machinery, agriculture lands, micro catchments to improve farm productivity and to make available water through-out the cropping cycle. In view of previous research studied in rainfed areas the role of agriculture engineers got much attention. The main role of agri. Engineers is to design, evaluation and optimization and value addition/ processing machinery. Evaluation and modification of the useful farm machinery according to the prevailing condition could be helpful to uplift the rainfed agriculture productivity. Promotion and adoption of mechanized farming is very necessary to fulfill the demands of burgeoning population. To improve the crop yield, optimization of inputs, viz., improved seed varieties, irrigation and utilization of latest machinery is very important. It could also be helpful for the development of methodology/techniques to reduce postharvest losses and atomization of different crop production, processing and storage.
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