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<Forum on the Caspian, Aral and Dead Seas-Perspective
of Water Environmental Management and Politics>

<Symposium on the Aral Sea and The Surrounding Region
-Irrigated Agriculture and the Environment>

The Problem of Agricultural Crop Diversity in the Lower Part of the Syrdarya Basin

Leonid. N. Dmitriev
Chief Engineer, Design Institute "Kazgiprovodkhoz"

1. The complicated ecological-economic situation in the Aral Sea basin is already well known around the world. The water resources of the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers are almost depleted. The ecopattern consisting of the sea itself, delta and flood plain lands with the existing large water diversion from river, is doomed to total disappearance. The Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers in their middle and low currents have turned into collectors for mineralized and contaminated sewage and drained waters from the cities and irrigated fields and became of little use for farming and drinking purposes.

The governments of the five states - the Republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizia and Tajikistan - considered joint endeavors in water resources use and conservation improvement to be necessary. An Interstate Council, executive committee and other coordinating bodies have been established. Some seven programs for study and research of optimal solutions of the occurred problem were elaborated together with the World Bank. Namely, the common strategy of water resources use and conservation in the basin is supposed to be worked out, to improve the registration and quality of water; to regenerate the water aquariums in the northern part of the Aral Sea and Syrdarya and Amudarya rivers deltas; to increase the channel capacity of the Syrdarya for big floods from Chardarinski water reservoir into the northern aquariums of the Aral Sea; to construct collectors for the drained saline water discharge from the irrigated areas into the sea; to improve the farming and drinking water supply of the cities and settlements; and to create an additional network of meteorological stations. The creation of common information patterns and regional water resources management means is stipulated. The first sitting of the representatives of the five states on elaboration of national and regional strategies in water resources and conservation took place in February this year. These actions inspire the people with hope to improve the ecological and economic situation in the region.

Nevertheless, the major point of this problem is the search for water saving reserves with simultaneous improvement of water resources use efficiency, cropping pattern selection and technology as well as agricultural crops yield increase. Agricultural and water saving problems in the Syrdarya downstream in Kzyl-Ordinskaya area of the Republic of Kazakhstan are being considered further.

2. All the main arable lands of the Kzyl-Ordinskaya area are located in the Syrdarya basin and are irrigated by the water from this river.

The main agricultural direction of the land use is paddy cultivation, which started being developed in the second half of this century. For 1960-1993 the irrigated area in the area increased from 90,000 to 287,000 ha due to engineering rice growing pattern construction. At present about 180,000 ha of lands are under rice rotation, other areas covering about 84,000 ha are used for fodder rotations, 10,000 are allocated for vegetables and melons. A number of serious problems have come to light over the years as a result of arable land use. The major problems are as follows:

• for the last 30 years water mineralization in the Syrdarya irrigation source increased from 0.4-0.6 g/l to 1.3-2.0 g/l;
• land salinity processes became widely pervasive covering an area of 150,000 ha. This process is going on because of insufficient drainage, increased irrigation water salinity, reduction in expenditure for clearing of drainage system etc.. Depending on the amout of water in the river, salt accumulation amounts to 1-5 tons per ha.
• Rice-cultivation orientation in the agricultural activity in the area requires enormous amounts of water diversion from the river, which results in:

a) on the background of total water resources reduction in the basin some negative irrevocable ecological degradation processes are taking place;

b) despite the great potential capacities of irrigated lands, the population in the area have to face shortages in food products such as: meat - 85%, milk - 52%, eggs - 60%, vegetables - 38%, potatoes - 23%. Although paddy yield for the 1965-1985 period has doubled and reached 5.5 t/ha, other crops yields is extremely poor: Lucerne - 5.0 t/ha,
wheat - 3.0t/ha, Soya - 0.8 t/ha, maize for grain - 3.0 t/ha.

Due to the above mentioned and other reasons it has become an absolute necessity to cut rice cropping area at least for minimal restoration of environmental balance in the region as well as for its economy upheaval.

3. The available submitted proposals on cutting the rice cropping area and increasing the efficiency of irrigated land use are contradictory and are as follows:

(a) The Local Kzyl-Ordinski Scientific-Research Institute considers it necessary to undertake the following:

• to reduce the number of paddy fields in a six-field crop rotation pattern from 3 to 2, i.e. to assume the total area under rice will not exceed 33.3%; or to save the existing crop pattern with 50% of paddy on one portion of land introducing non-rice crop patterns on the remaining part.
• due to regional ecological state deterioration, it is advisable to minimize (or exclude totally) weed-killing chemicals and mineral fertilizers use; o
• make abundant use of perennial in crop rotation pattern;

(b) DAI Inc.(USA) has proposed a preliminary concept of a cropping strategy for the area. Its key statements are as follows:

• shifting of emphasis from rice to other crops;
• irrigation and drainage system perfection;
• agro-industry development.

With due account to local reclamation conditions, agricultural crops adaptation to continental climate and its value increase in perennial grasses processing, DAI has considered an exhaustive list of competitive non-rice crops giving preliminary assessment to their advantages and disadvantages. From their point of view the oil-containing crops such as sunflower, safflower, rape and soya beans in combination with fodder sorghum, maize and some other grain crops are considered to be the most beneficial crops especially after processing. The proposal stipulates construction of a special oil refinery. In this case rice is supposed to be cultivated as a monoculture on heavier and less drained soils.

(c) Some specialists from the Harza company (USA) also stick to the idea of rice cultivation in a one-crop pattern, which is acknowledged in many countries of Southeast Asia and America. In the majority of these countries rice growing is practiced predominantly in warm zones with plus temperatures in winter. It provides a favorable opportunity to have a second harvest of non-rice agricultural crops. That is why rice growing in these countries as mono-crop pattern is rather conditional.

(d) Specialists at the Design Institute "Kazgiprovodkhoz" have given their consideration to this question in their feasibility study report and came to the conclusion that: introduction of rice monoculture presents by itself a fairly tempting alternative. However the local scientists expertise has not given any positive results in this particular problem. It resulted in intensive soil swamping, abundant growth of hydrophilous weeds control which presents certain difficulties; considerable rice yield decrease and greater need for fertilizers, particularly nitrates, as well as pesticides and herbicides. Consequently it resulted in more intensive pollution of drainage water. Besides 65% of the crop growing area would be non-rice area. This means that under conditions of insufficient soil drainability and high irrigation water salinity it becomes necessary to develop an artificial drainage system with an intensity of 70-300 m/ha. This will require considerable additional investment in the construction of drainage systems with water pumping, power supply network development and maintenance services.

These investments depending on the local natural resources can amount to US$250 million throughout the whole irrigated area within Kzyl-Ordinskaya area. Even if the rice yield is high enough, the implementation of this idea will be hampered by shortage of funds.

That is why the Design Institute "Kazgiprovodkhoz" reviewed the well known idea of occasional fresh ground water formation by periodical rice growing. The essence of this concept is based on rice with non-rice crops rotation. For this particular purpose the whole area under rice-crop rotation pattern (600-1,000 ha) is sown with rice and flooded with water. As rice is cultivated simultaneously on all the fields of the crop rotation area there are minimum under ground water and salts flowing from one field to another, that has place in the traditional crop rotation pattern. Salt disposal from the soil layer occurs and fresh water cushion is formed during rice vegetation period with insignificant soil drainability increase at the expense of additional construction and drainage network deepening. During the two subsequent years non-rice crops are cultivated in the mentioned lands which consume moisture through regular irrigation and partially from desalinated ground water. Afterwards, two-year rice growing is resumed. As it was pointed out, such 3-year cycle provides rice production of 33.3% per rotation and up-land crops of 66.3%. The choice of the up-land crops should be determined by perspective long-term orientation of the farm. At present the farmers of the area are growing rice, animal feeds and produce cattle breeding products. Evidently, to provide the population of the area with required food items the mentioned specialization by the majority of farmers should be preserved. It seems to be expedient to replace fodder crops such as maize and lucerne by more salt-tolerant species like sorghum and sweet clover. If required, cultivation of maize and lucerne may be continued in small quantities on well-drained lands. From irrigation and economic point of view oil-containing plants cultivation is worth considering. This specialization alternative ought to be tentative and thoroughly tested on pilot fields.

4. Water saving is achieved mainly through two factors in all the proposals - paddy sown area reduction and water loss prevention caused by underground water flowing from paddy fields to the neighboring fields after crop harvesting. According to preliminary estimates, reduction of rice sown area by 20,000 ha (from 80,000 to 60,000) will result in a saving of fresh water of approximately 300 million m3, while under ground water flowing prevention during the post-harvest period will save 150 million m3. The latter effect is achieved mainly through introducing rice monoculture 3-fields crop rotation with large fields.

5. Specialists at the Design Institute "Kazgiprovodkhoz" also have done some economic evaluations of the required capital investments for growing rice as a monocrop and for other above mentioned alternatives. All the comparative values are shown in Appendix 1. Proceeding from these evaluations it turns out that 1 ha reconstruction costs for three alternatives are as follows (in US $)

• rice as monoculture - $2,508
• large 3 fields crop rotation pattern with 33.3% of rice area - $950
• existing crop rotation pattern in the area - 66.7% and non-rice crop pattern in the remaining area (33.3%) - $1797

Judging from these data, it is considered that the cheapest alternative is large 3 fields crop rotation pattern with rice area of 33.3%. The main expenses in the rice monoculture alternative are the high cost of the drainage system construction for upland crop area. Analysis data show that due to the diversity of hydrogeological conditions of the region, drainage construction volumes and consequently its costs in different areas will considerably differ from one locality to another: in the lower parts of basin the cost will be greater than in upper parts.

6. The above mentioned preliminary estimate data cannot be considered sufficient in alternative choices for the following reasons: scarcity of previous study of the natural conditions such as water conductivity of the major acquires, updated components of water and salt balance in the irrigated fields; and almost no experience in cultivation of alternative crops such as sorghum, safflower etc.. Arrangement as well as undertaking natural experimental work and simulation modeling are required for optimal solution choice.

7. Visual soil surveys were carried out and three crop-rotation were chosen for experimental purposes in the two state farms located in the upper part of the Kzyl-Ordinsky left-bank irrigated massif (30-60 km from Kzyl-Orda) with a total area of 2865 ha. Cultivation of paddy as mono crop is envisaged for plot No 1 in the area totaling 987 ha, up-land crops cultivation with intensive drainage system construction for plot No 5 (810 ha), rice rotation with other agricultural crops for three years, one of which is intended for rice sowing on the whole plot area No 6 (1069 ha).

8. The tentative costs for construction works are estimated for the plots mentioned (list of works is given in the Appendix No 1) and are as follows:

• plot No 1 - US$0.55 million
• plot No 5 - US$2.80 million
• plot No 6 - US$1.02 million

The total capital investments amount to US$4.37 million. The design survey cost is approximately US$350,000.

9. It is expedient to carry out complex scientific research, reclamation, hydrogeological, water management, design with elaboration of mathematical models on the above mentioned plots if money is available for these purposes.

APPENDIX: Reconstruction Costs per 1000 ha of Irrigated Area for Three Alternatives of Decreasing Rice Cultivation Area (Thousand US$)

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