Provided by Ariba Shahid
In Mridke, Pakistan (Reuters) -Karamat Ali cow and Buffalos once submitted milk to his multi -generation family. But earlier this year, a 61-year-old sold about a dozen cattle-and-a-sunscreen income.
The rice grower now uses its panels to feed the pipe well, which consists of a water well and a motorized underground water pump in Punjab province. The unit allows Ali to moisturize its crops and loosen it depending on the inadequate power grid and expensive diesel to feed the pump.
“The water supply to my raw feed is smoother than before,” he said.
When Pakistan is experiencing the Sun Revolution, farmers, such as Ali, are increasingly destroying diesel and network power for sun -powered pipes, according to interviews with 10 growers, as well as government officials and analysts.
Based on previously undeclared Punjab Water Administration documents reviewed by Reuters, the sun’s boom coincided with the rapid depletion of water boards in Pakistan’s most abundant province. The documents did not define any reason.
Six of the farmers’ Reuters said they started much more moisturizing their rice paddles – including a part of a practice of practice called impulse irrigation, which would not have been possible without solar water pumps. Farmers also choose to grow more thirsty rice crops than in previous years, when rice fields in Pakistan increased by 30% from 2023 to 2025, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, the amount of land to grow less water -required corn decreased by 10%.
Recently, there are no official estimates on the number of pipe wells in Pakistan, which does not require their registration. However, their extensive use is that farmers who choose equipment that solar devices are ready to increase 45% collapse due to a network of 2025 in three years. Its estimate was based on consumption data published by the National Energy Service.
Reuters calculations based on Habib data viewed by Habib and Lahore renewable energy analyst Syed Faizan Ali Shah, showing that about 400,000 pipes that once relied on network electricity switched to the sun. Solar panel farmers probably purchased additional 250,000 pipe wells from 2023, Habib estimates that the sun can now be around 650,000 such devices throughout Pakistan.
For the first time, the transition of Pakistan agriculture to the sun and its effects on groundwater is reported.
The sun boom in Pakistan, prompted by a sudden increase in energy rates in 2023, is repeated worldwide. Large production of solar panels in China since 2017 80%of modules collapsed, so farmers from the lush wooded Brazil were prone to drought, prone to Iraq to turn into the sun to control their irrigation systems.
The explosion of cheap solar panels pose a particular threat to the water level in the South Asian Bread Bag in Punjabe.
According to the maps announced by the water authorities and saw Reuters, the water table decreased below 60 feet – the Provincial Moisturizing Department is critical of 6.6% of Punjab since 2024. This marks an approximately 25% increase from 2020 to 2024, and the deepest pockets – water level above 80 feet – more than twice the same period.
Pakistani authorities Minister Awais Leghari in June. Reuters said it was “a misconception that the wells of the solar pipes are depleting groundwater.”
He said farmers who used devices were drawing a similar amount of water as before. “The ground is grown does not increase. They just change expensive diesel solar energy.”
The minister did not respond when he submitted farmers’ accounts in September, stating that they had increased crop irrigation and data showing the development of rice fields.
Solarization is “useful for the environment because it is clean energy,” said Punjab Mohammad Kazim Postmade. “But at the same time, it also affects our water table.”
His department told Reuters that he continued to investigate the connection between pipe wells and groundwater depletion, but he took measures to protect the body of water. The latest floods also affected some dryer areas in Penjab, perhaps by charging some water tables, the minister added.
Panels and raw materials
Pakistan, one of the most in the water, found himself in conflicts about sources with his neighbor, India, which she briefly fought for in May.
However, for many Punjab farmers’ water table, the threat of water table is a problem for tomorrow.
The growers were beaten through the year’s world wheat price, the Punjab tuft. Rural poverty in Pakistan increased to a record record 2023. May And it remains increased after the rescue of the International Monetary Fund that year, which determined higher energy rates and taxes.
The transition to Solar allowed Mohammad Naseem for 61 -year -olds to save about $ 2 million (about $ 7,000) – or more than four -legged Pakistan’s gross domestic product per capita – energy consumption because he bought his plates four years ago.
He said the ability to irrigate the will increased from 400 to 600 kg of rice, although the crop harvest has improved, so Naseem is allowed to obtain better prices.
“I wash it with water. I sleep next to it,” said Naseem, who rewards so much on his panels that he disassembles them every night and brings them home from the fields to avoid possible theft.
“Solar panels should be installed at all costs,” said Rai Abdul Ghafoor, a 38-year-old living farm, saving the purchase.
Although poorer farmers, such as Ghafoor, still depend on diesel and network power, many agricultural dependent villages have concentrated amounts to purchase panels as community assets.
Haji Allah Rakha, an 80-year-old farmer with 16 panels, shares them with two other families. “They contribute to us all useful,” he said.
“Farmers share, rent and move shields such as tractors,” said Shahab Qureshi, a Lahore solar panel trader. “They sell land, jewelry, or make loans just to get it. In five to six months, your return on your investment is done.”
Raise groundwater
Federal and provincial officials began to focus more on a slow -shaking crisis, especially after India suspended its involvement in an agreement regulating the division of water from the critical Indian river system earlier this year.
Punjab began aquatic pilots to supplement the aquifer, which aims to detect depletion and ensure stable groundwater supply more than 40 seats before the Indian April step, although officials said such projects had grown since then.
“This is our small effort to return the right part of the aquifer,” said Adnan Hassan, a researcher at the Punjab Moisturizing Department. “If contaminated water is injected (due to excessive extraction), the next generation will suffer.”
The province also revives the old infrastructure, such as the Ravi Siphon, the Collonian era tunnel, which helps stabilize the flows from the Ravi River. Officials hope that by improving the usual irrigation methods, farmers will reduce the need to extract groundwater.
An independent environmental scientist Imran Saqib Khalid said that in Pakistan there is still a shortage of measures such as well map of wells and real -time observation of the water crisis.
The sun’s side is missing “any method of madness,” he said, adding that without changing control, the depletion of groundwater will continue to suffer: “In the long run, it will affect the intensity of growing and the crop types that we can grow, which in turn will affect the safety of our food.”
(1 USD = 283,0500 Pakistan Rupee)
(Mubaber Bukara Business Lahore ADDA has removed people in Murdke; Champter Ang).