Assessment of Environmental Impacts of Implementation of Better Management Practices in Cotton Crop

Project Category: Freshwater
Donor Agency: WWF - Switzerland
Start Date: July 2007
Planned End Date: June 2011

Summary

Cotton is one of agriculture's most water-intensive and pest-sensitive crops, mostly grown in semi-arid and water-scarce areas. Its cultivation takes up more than 2.4% of global arable land, involves about 30 million farmers, and has been estimated to consume 11% of the world's pesticides. It therefore has significant environmental and social impacts in many regions of the world. WWF promotes the adoption of Better Management Practices (BMP) in cotton cultivation to achieve measurable reductions in key environmental impacts, while improving social and economic benefits for cotton farmers.

The WWF cotton project in Pakistan started in 2001 when first field trials and the adoption of Farmer Field Schools (FFS) with partner organisations were implemented. In 2005 the first three years phase of the Pakistan Sustainable Cotton Initiative (PSCI) was initiated with the support from IKEA. The major focus was on instigation Better Management Practices (BMPs), improved social and economic conditions for cotton farmers and farm workers engaged in cotton production and processing.

During 2005 and 2006, fifty two (52) Master Farmer Facilitators (MFF) and more than 1400 farmers were trained through season long Farmer Training of Facilitators (F-ToF) and Farmer Field School (FFS) activities. The FFS education led to reduction of inputs by the participating farmers to around 20% expenditure on tillage operations, 31% in fertilizer use, 23% in irrigation water and more than 60% in term of pesticide as compared with Farmer Practice (FP) plots. However, the actual benefits for the environment as well as humans are still to be assessed. This project focuses on the effects of the BMP implementation on biodiversity, water availability and quality, soil fertility and contamination with pesticides. As far as possible human health effects and welfare are also assessed.

Objective

The project aims at scientifically assessing the impacts of cotton BMPs on environment and human health. The specific objectives of the project are:

• Scientific research studies to measure impacts of cotton BMPs on environment and human health conducted in collaboration with research and academic institutes.
• Results of studies may lead to improvement in BMPs and development of output indicators for BCI