Muridke:
Karamat Ali cows and buffalo once provided milk to their multigenerational family. But earlier this year, the 61 -year -old player sold around a dozen cattle, and spent the profits with a set of solar panels.
The rice farmer in Punjab now uses his panels to feed a tube well, which is composed of a water well and a motorized groundwater pump. The device allows Ali to water its crops more easily and releases it depending on the erratic electricity and expensive diesel to feed the pump.
“Water supply to my rice diet is softer than before,” he said.
As Pakistan undergoes a solar revolution, farmers such as ALI are increasingly abandoning more and more diesel power and network for tube wells with solar energy, according to interviews with 10 producers, as well as government officials and analysts.
The solar boom has coincided with the rapid exhaustion of the water tables in the most populous province of Pakistan, according to documents of the Punjab Punjab Water Authority not previously reported by Reuters. The documents did not identify any cause.
Six of the farmers told Reuters that they had begun to irrigate their rice fields much more frequently, even several times a day as part of a practice known as pulse irrigation, which would not have been possible without solar water pumps. Farmers also choose to grow more thirst for rice crops than in previous years, with the size of the rice fields in Pakistan by increasing 30% between 2023 and 2025, as shown in the data of the United States Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, the amount of land dedicated to growing less intensive water in water fell by 10%.
The details about the scale of the transition of Pakistani agriculture to solar energy and its impact on groundwater are reported for the first time.
The explosion in the availability of cheap solar panels is representing a particular threat to water levels in the bread basket of the southern Asia of Punjab.
The water table has been reduced below 60 feet, a level designated as a critic by the provincial irrigation department, in 6.6% of Punjab from 2024, according to MAPS published for internal use by the water authorities and seen by Reuters. That marks an increase of around 25% between 2020 and 2024, while the deepest pockets, with water levels beyond 80 feet, more the size of a size during the same period.
Panels and rice
Pakistan, one of the narrowest nations in the world, has been found in conflicts about the resource with its neighboring Indian upstream, with whom it fought briefly in May.
But for many farmers in Punjab, the threat to the water table is a problem for tomorrow.
Producers have been mistreated by a fall in the global price of wheat, the basic crop of Punjab. Rural poverty in Pakistan increased to a record in May 2023 and remains elevated after a rescue of the International Monetary Fund that imposed higher energy rates and taxes.
The change to solar energy has allowed Mohammad Naseem, 61, to save some RS2 million, or more than the gross domestic product of Quadruple Per capita pakistan, in energy costs since he bought his panels four years ago.
The ability to water at will has modestly increased production between 400 and 600 kg of rice every year, he said, although the quality of crop yield has improved, which allows Naseem to obtain better prices.
“Lavo with water.
“The solar panels must be installed at all costs,” said 38 -year -old subsistence farmer Rai Abdul Ghafoor, who has been saving for a purchase. Although the poorest farmers like Ghafoor still depend on the diesel and the power of the network, many agriculture -dependent villages have grouped sums to buy panels as community property.
Haji Allah Rakha, an 80 -year -old farmer who has 16 panels, shares them with two other families. “They contribute, and we all benefit,” he said.
“Farmers share, rent and move panels as tractors,” said solar panel merchant based in Lahore Shahab Qureshi. “They sell land, jewels or take loans just to obtain it. Within five to six months, their return on investment is fulfilled.”
Raise groundwater
Federal and provincial officials have begun to pay more attention to the crisis of slowing, especially after India suspended their participation in an agreement that governs the water exchange of the Critical System of the Indo River earlier this year.
Punjab began the aquifer recharge pilots, whose objective is a slow exhaustion and guarantee the stable supply of groundwater, in more than 40 sites before the Moving of April of India, although the officials said that such projects have grown in importance since then.
“This is our little effort to return due participation to the aquifer,” said Adnan Hassan, a researcher at the Punjab Irrigation Department. “If contaminated water is injected (due to excessive extraction), the next generation will suffer.”
