Flood-hit farmers in the arid village of Qaim Khan, Badin attend an outdoor meeting near a flooded paddy field.

23 November 2011: Farmer Noor Muhammad was hit with the worst disaster in nearly 5 decades of his life when the monsoon rains and floods in August/September destroyed his home and damaged his rice and cotton crops in a remote village in Pakistan’s southeastern province of Sindh.

Left in heavy debt with inundated waters in his 20 acres of spoiled cotton and rotten paddies, Muhammad isn’t sure what to do next as his loan shark is demanding an interest repayment, which is charged at a monthly rate of 10% for the principle of 450,000 rupees ($5,150).

Crop crisis

“I have lost all my crops and am now left with a big pile of debt,” says father-of-six Muhammad in Qaim Khan village, Badin. 

“I can’t grow anything as the flood water is not receding and I have no money to buy seeds. I may have to sell some livestock to repay some debt and borrow a bigger loan for a new crop. Or I will have to look for a labour job in town to repay some loan and borrow a bigger one.”

Muhammad is among 3,000,000 flood-hit and food-insecure people in districts of Sindh and adjacent province Balochistan who urgently require agricultural support to enable them to resume food production and income-generation activities, the UN humanitarian office OCHA said in its Nov 18 situation report. 

Even if the situation improves, Muhammad, like tens of thousands of other flood-hit farmers in Sindh, will be late for the new planting season, which means the yields will be significantly lower than if they had started planting on time.

Losing ground

Every planting day missed after the optimum planting period (15 November for early planting; 1 December for late) may result in the loss of 16kg of wheat per acre per day, according to the UNOCHA situation report.

This year heavy rains and floods in late August and early-September have killed some 200 people and made 6.8 million homeless or displaced across Pakistan. Out of those affected people, 1.8 million of them live in Badin, the worst-hit region. 

Plan, which has raised $2,700,000 out of $6,300,000 required to benefit close to 150,000 people, is also concerned that it may have to scale back its work on food security, education, shelter and water and sanitation if the required funding needs are not met.

“Thousands of families have been affected by the floods and are in desperate need of assistance. But if we don't get the funding we require we won't be able to assist those people to the best of our abilities,” says Plan Pakistan acting country director Rashid Javed.

Whether Noor Muhammad, who is already among the 80,000 people Plan and local partner HANDS are providing 200,000 liters of safe drinking water to daily, will be able to start his new planting season depends on whether Plan and other aid agencies will receive the funding they need.

Find out more about Plan's work in Pakistan or check out Plan's photos of the crisis.