EDITORIAL: While the Food and Agriculture Organisation has already warned of Pakistan’s deteriorating agricultural soils, with its recent report revealing that 29.6 percent of the country’s farmland — a massive 6.67 million hectares — has been lost to soil salinity and sodicity, what is equally alarming is the warning that this damage may accelerate in the coming years. Salinisation rates are projected to rise by as much as 10 percent annually, according to Dr Abdur Rasheed, head of the seed division at an agricultural services provider, who underscored this threat in remarks to Business Recorder on December 28. The implications this has for agricultural productivity, national food security and the survival of millions reliant on rural livelihoods are nothing short of dire. For a country so dependent on agriculture for its economic stability and food sovereignty, it is astounding that this national vulnerability was permitted to escalate to such levels, with most efforts to contain it proving inadequate to the scale of the challenge. Fuelled by unsustainable irrigation regimes, widespread canal seepage, deficient drainage infrastructure and the unchecked extraction of brackish groundwater, the problem is advancing at disturbing pace. Each year, some 40,000 hectares of farmland succumb to salinity, with yield losses exceeding Rs20 billion — an economic blow Pakistan can ill-afford. Experts note that the Indus River system carries nearly 31.6 million tonnes of salt annually, depositing around 20 million tonnes into canal command areas. Over 1.2 million tubewells add another 45 million tonnes from brackish groundwater each year. The impact is especially severe in Punjab, where salt accumulation and poor-quality groundwater have cut wheat yields by 30-40 percent and rice by 25-35 percent in the Indus Plain. Nationwide, nearly 19.43 million hectares of irrigated land are affected, with 1.4 million hectares abandoned altogether due to extreme salinisation. In the Indus Delta, reduced freshwater flows have allowed seawater intrusion, leaving over half the soils highly saline. Past government efforts to tackle soil salinity and waterlogging, including the Salinity Control and Reclamation Projects (SCARP) relied on tubewells, and surface and subsurface drains. While SCARP achieved limited success in areas like Rahim Yar Khan, it has largely fallen short because this approach, while technically comprehensive, is both costly and energy-intensive. It also faced challenges related to environmental degradation and the complex issue of safely disposing of brackish drainage water. Then there was the Left Bank Outfall Drain project, which also produced mixed results: it reduced waterlogging, reclaiming farmland and improving crop yields in parts of Sindh, but was undermined by design flaws, poor construction and inadequate maintenance. These shortcomings led to breaches, worsened flooding — most notably during the 2010 floods — ecological damage and high costs, making it a controversial project with both gains and drawbacks. Clearly, past approaches have achieved little lasting impact, and the scale of soil salinity and sodicity demands a new, proactive paradigm. Rather than relying solely on costly, reactive reclamation projects, solutions must include a more preventive approach that builds resilience at the farm level: improving drainage, ridge-and-bed planting, gypsum application on sodic soils, enriching fields with organic matter, efficient irrigation and cultivating salt-tolerant crops in smart rotations. This requires sustained investment in research on saline-resistant crop varieties and innovative soil- and water-management technologies, alongside comprehensive education and training programmes to equip farmers with the skills to implement these practices effectively. Complementary measures such as policy support and incentives for sustainable farming are also critical to ensure long-term soil health and productivity. Ultimately, there needs to be a realisation at the governmental level and within the farming community that failure to act decisively now will lock the country into a cycle of land degradation that could take decades to reverse. Copyright Business Recorder, 2026