Production Possibilities in Catchment Areas under Dharabi Dam in Chakwal

Master's Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Agrarian Studies grade: A Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (UAAR) course: MSc (Hons) Agri.Economics language: English abstract: Water is a limiting factor for sustainable agriculture in Barani (Arid). However rainfall is the only source of water the spatial and temporal variation of which is very high. Therefore conservation and management of this source is vital for agriculture development and socio-economic uplift of the area. This study was mainly devised to address land distribution problems and consequent farm productivity in the study area. Furthermore level of land distribution disparities was focused on to observe its relationship with different on-farm and socio-economic indicators including gross margins cropping intensity crop diversity income distribution disparities and institutional credit availability etc. All of the aforesaid indicators were also assessed for small medium and large farm size categories. The farmers were divided into two main categories irrigated and rainfed farmers. Land was observed evenly distributed in irrigated area while land distribution was found most skewed in rainfed area. The performance of most of the indicators i.e. yield gross margins farm income labour productivity income distribution cropping intensity and crop diversity was found better in irrigated as compared to rainfed. While marginal factor productivity irrigation productivity and rate of institutional credit availability was higher in irrigated area. However rainfed area was always least efficient with respect to all of the quantified indicators. The findings of the research are helpful for the farmers of the study area in decision making among different farm enterprises. Hence it can alleviate poverty and help to bring food security in the deprived regions.