23 April 2009
In June 2007, cyclone Yemyin brought devastating floods to the Sindh and Balochistan areas of southern Pakistan, affecting 2.5 million people. The floods destroyed standing crops, carried away livestock and wrecked the irrigation canals. As most people depend on farming to survive, they watched not just their personal belongings being swept away in the waters, but their very livelihoods too.
"Bad luck knocked at the door"
Jhal Magsi was just one of the ten flood-hit districts in the centre of Balochistan province. The district is twice the size of Yorkshire (5336 sq km) and home to more than 100,000 people.
Describing the floods, 55-year-old Ghulam Hussain, whose family has farmed in Balochistan for generations, said: “It was late in the night, almost nine o’clock, when bad luck knocked at the door. The water quickly made its way into the house, dashing it to the ground. I went inside first and started pulling my children out of the water.”
Like many, Ghulam lost not just his property but livestock and all standing stores of wheat. Immediately after the floods, disease began to spread, causing more deaths. Livestock that survived quickly began to weaken.
With little clean drinking water, people were forced to drink from small, dirty pools of standing water, alongside their animals.
Partnerships
DFID provided support to agencies and organisations already in Balochistan, including Islamic Relief, Oxfam and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to address humanitarian needs caused by the floods.
FAO, which has been running food security and poverty alleviation project in the region since 2004 and agricultural training since 1983, delivered seed to nearly 20,000 households.
Building back
Nearly two years on, in Nowshera village farmers gathered to tell stories of the destruction caused by the floods. Boran, a veteran farmer, joined the discussion by saying that he lost tens of thousands of kilos of wheat in the floods.
Sitting beside Boran, another farmer, Shah Nawaz, appeared still shaken by the loss of his property and nine cows, but was happy he was able to get his children to a nearby hill to safety. Showing off a field to demonstrate the difference in the quality of crop, another elderly farmer said the seed they had obtained from FAO had given great results.
When the wheat was harvested the following year - and added together with grain purchased using traditional moneylenders - farmers in Balochistan achieved a harvest that produced nearly 60% of their pre-flood wheat production.
Next steps
The problems are not over for the people of this area, as the district administrator estimates that almost 60% of the land can no longer be cultivated - largely because on-farm and local irrigation systems are costly and difficult to repair.
Another young farmer reported that cattle and goats are still dying in large numbers. Nonetheless, like many of his neighbours, he is now hopeful about the future. “Generally the future seems good for the district,” he says.
Facts and stats
- Following the 2007 floods in Sindh and Balochistan, DFID contributed £2.4 million to various humanitarian organistations. £750,000 of this support went to FAO for their livelihoods early recovery programme in Balochistan. In total, DFID provided £16.8 million in core funding to the FAO.
- In 2007 DFID gave over $1 billion to UN agencies.