MURIDKE:
Karamat Ali’s cows and buffaloes have once provided her multigenonerational milk family. But earlier this year, the 61 -year -old man sold a dozen cattle – and passed the product over a set of solar panels.
The Punjab rice producer now uses his panels to power a tube well, which is composed of a water well and a motorized groundwater pump. The device allows alien to irrigate its crops with more ease and release it with the costly erratic electric gate and diesel to supply the pump.
“My paddy’s water supply is more fluid than before,” he said.
While Pakistan is undergoing a solar revolution, farmers like Ali are increasingly abandoning diesel and grid power for sun tube wells, according to interviews with 10 producers, as well as government representatives and analysts.
The solar boom has coincided with the rapid exhaustion of water tables in the most populous province of Pakistan, according to Reuters, documents from the Water Authority of Punjab not reported. The documents did not identify any cause.
Six of the farmers told Reuters that they had started to irrigate their rice fields much more regularly – including up to several times a day as part of a practice known as Irulse by Impulses – which would not have been possible without solar water pumps. Farmers also choose to cultivate more thirsty rice crops than in previous years, the size of rice fields in Pakistan increasing 30% between 2023 and 2025, according to American data from the Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, the amount of land dedicated to the growth of high water intensity has dropped by 10%.
Details on the extent of the transition from Pakistani agriculture to solar energy and its impact on groundwater is reported for the first time.
The explosion of the availability of inexpensive solar panels is a particular threat for water levels in the South Asian Punjab bread basket.
The water table decreased below 60 feet – a level designated as critical by the provincial irrigation service – on 6.6% of Punjab in 2024, according to internal uses for internal use by the water authorities and seen by Reuters. This marks an increase of some 25% between 2020 and 2024, while the deepest pockets – with water levels beyond 80 feet – more than doubled in size during the same period.
Panels and paddy
Pakistan, one of the nations most stressed by water in the world, found itself involved in conflicts on the resource with its neighbor upstream of India, with whom it briefly fought in May.
But for many Punjab farmers, the threat to the water table is a problem for tomorrow.
The producers were beaten by a fall of one year in the world price of wheat, the basic harvest of Punjab. Rural poverty in Pakistan increased to a record level in May 2023 and remains raised after a bailout of the International Monetary Fund that year which imposed higher prices and taxes.
The transition to solar energy allowed Mohammad Naseem 61 years old to save some 2 million rupees – or more than the quadruple gross domestic product of Pakistan per capita – in electricity cost since he bought his panels four years ago.
The ability to irrigate at will has modestly increased production between 400 and 600 kg of rice each year, he said, although the quality of crop yield has improved, allowing Naseem to get better prices.
“I wash him with water. I sleep near him,” said Naseem, who protects his panels so much that he dismantled them every night and would bring them back to the Maison des Champs to avoid a possible flight.
“Solar panels should be installed at all costs,” said the 38 -year -old subsistence farmer Rai Abdul Ghafoor, who saved for a purchase. While the poorer farmers like Ghafoor always depend on diesel energy and the grid, many villages dependent on agriculture have pools sums to buy the panels as a common property.
Haji Allah Rakha, an 80 -year -old farmer who has 16 signs, shares them with two other families. “They contribute and we all take advantage of it,” he said.
“Farmers share, rent and move panels like tractors,” said the solar panel merchant based in Lahore, Shahab Qureshi. “They sell land, jewelry or contract loans just to obtain it. Within five to six months, your return on investment is accomplished.”
Erect
Federal and provincial officials began to pay more attention to the slow boiling crisis, in particular after India has suspended its participation in an agreement governing water sharing in the critical system of the Indus river earlier this year.
Punjab has started the pilots with aquifer collection, which aim to slow down depletion and ensure stable groundwater supply, in more than 40 sites before the April move from India, although officials have declared that such projects have since taken on importance.
“This is our little effort to return the share due to the aquifer,” said Adnan Hassan, researcher of the Punjab irrigation department. “If polluted water is injected (due to an overexraction), the next generation will suffer.”
