Farming system analysis of irrigated farms in Faisalabad, Pakistan

This research was related to water inequality assessment at canal and watercourse level in the head, middle and tail farms irrigated by Canal Rakh Branch, Faisalabad, Pakistan. The main objectives of the research were to assess the inequalities in irrigation water supply, farmers' decision about cropping patterns based on available water and the constraints faced in different areas. This study was carried out to assess the status of water availability in the year 2012-13. The data analysis was performed in order to find out the differences in designed and actual water discharge in head, middle and tail areas based on the data provided by Punjab Irrigation Department. The analysis also aimed to study the farmers' adaptation to given water supply based on selected indicators such as area under each crop, number of crops in a year and purpose of production. The research found out that the water inequality existed at canal level, distributary level and watercourse level. Tail distributaries were getting less water than designed discharge while in the head distributaries the condition was opposite i.e. they were getting more volume of water than their allocated share. However, in middle distributaries the water supply was equal to designed discharge. The reasons of inequality were based on physical design of canals, management of water flow in canal/water course and roles of informal institutional in water allocation. The research also found out that farmers decided the cropping area of high water demanding crops like sugarcane and low water demanding crops like fodder according to canal water availability. The area under high water demanding crops decreased from head to middle and further decreased in tail areas. The income of head farmers was the highest and it gradually decreased toward downstream areas, which implied the needs to focus on income diversification in downstream areas. (Résumé d'auteur)