Drip Irrigation / Water Conservation Technologies
Drip irrigation is #67 in Project Drawdown’s solutions list, with an estimated $430 billion of net global savings and 1.33 gigatons of reduced CO2. Starting in 2017 we started converting various blocks of the farm from flood irrigation towards drip irrigation and pivot systems. At this point all our orchards of mango, citrus and pomegranate along with our vegetables are on drip irrigation. Due to the complete lack of organic matter in Pakistani soils, drip systems consume around 50% less water than flood irrigation, while in some parts of the world drip can use up to70% less water. It is our contention and ambition to take our water usage down to using 70-80% less than the flood irrigated chemical agriculture norm. This will be possible via drip systems, and through building soils via our regenerative no-till practices (including composts, biochar and organic mulching).
The sugarcane on the farm is grown under a pivot system. Interestingly, the pivot system saves about 50% water compared to flood irrigation before. We also hope to further increase this water saving by building soil. A note on our sugarcane, because of it’s economic value to the farm and its necessity in affording us the space to scale up our various regenerative + drawdown practices, we have proceeded cautiously and slowly with the sugarcane transition. We have adopted an INM and IPM approach which has saved us from using any pesticides or herbicides. We are now escalating our efforts towards a much more regenerative (and a no-till) paradigm for sugarcane this year (explained in greater detail in the System of Crop Intensification section).
While we are extremely fortunate and grateful to be able to undertake these investments, it is extremely difficult for small farmers to install drip systems even with the fairly generous subsidies for drip irrigation available in Pakistan. It is increasingly our contention that the raised-bed no-till systems we are implementing, along with mulch are the best hope for Pakistani (& other developing country) farmers to reduce their water usage for most annual, semi-perennial and orchard crops. In fact farmers who have adopted just this change (the raised beds) are able to prevent the anaerobic conditions in the root zone that flood irrigation promotes and can dramatically improve the health, vitality and yields of their crops.
A note on drip irrigation’s global potential. Farmers in the global south find it impossible to install these systems without government, NGO and developmental institutions’ support. There is perhaps some hope for cutting edge affordable solutions, such as this MIT research being conducted in Jordan and Morocco. We contacted the research team conducting these trials a couple of years ago but have yet to hear back. But we certainly hope that this turns out to be a roaring success.
Another exciting subsurface drip innovation comes from Responsive Drip Irrigation. Their product is, as the name suggests responsive - rather than a pre-programmed timed release of water - releasing water when the plant actually needs it, using a remarkable understanding of plant biochemistry. Their product claims to save 30-50% more water than traditional drip systems. Truly incredible stuff. Preliminary trials at Pakistan’s National Agriculture Research Center (NARC) are showing 70% water savings compared to regular drip and major yield increases for some crops. We eagerly await the results of these trials and look forward to our own trials. Although not in the ‘affordable small farmer solution’ category we’re excited for innovations like these, and hope they can rapidly expand and get much more affordable with time.