PESHAWAR: Climate change and increasing earth temperature due to global warming has badly affected the winter season gourd farming in Pakistan that is being carried out in the fertile lands of Mardan and Buner districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Dr Tariq Nawaz Khattak, the bio-chemist and research officer at the Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) said that gourd was being cultivated in vast lands of Mardan and Buner districts and it was only farmed during the winter season in Pakistan. He said that this winter season gourd cultivation in thousands of acres of land in Rustam, Charghali, Totalai, Katlang, and Takhtbhai areas provided livelihood opportunities to thousands of people who were associated with farming from generations. During the winter season, the environment of these areas was very suitable for cultivation of gourd and gave significant benefits to the growers, he said. Due to changes in weather patterns caused by global warning and climate change, the livelihood of thousands of people through gourd farming was affected and was at risk, he said. He said that from the past several years, farmers engaged in gourd farming in Mardan and Buner districts during winter season were facing losses and were compelled to consider plans for changing their profession to make their both ends meet. All farmers were facing losses due to reduction in the cultivated vegetable because of the climate changes, he added. Last year, about 70 per cent of crops were wasted due to diseases and attack by white fly, he said. Janat Gul, a farmer, said that he invested around Rs 0.5 million for gourd farming on his 17 acres of land last year in Charghali area in Mardan district. He said that he hardly recovered his investment and could not make any gains from farming. He said that they (farmers) used to earn handsome profit from gourd farming in the past but now they were facing a lot of problems due to climatic change and its impact on crop growth. Due to extension in summer season, the sowing period of gourd which usually started from the end of September had also been delayed to the end of October, extending by a month period, Dr Tariq explained. The crops grow and produce vegetable very rapidly and within a period of three months it becomes unproductive due to cold weather by the end of December. He said that the farmers pluck ripe vegetable from the fields twice or thrice during the production period of the gourd crops, which was also reduced due to delay in sowing period inflicting loss on farmers’ incomes. Another factor which affected the gourd crop was the attack of white fly which usually disappeared in October due to the arrival of winter, he added. “However, due to delay of summer season, the while fly did not disappear and attack the gourd crops which affects cultivation.” He said that due to change in the weather pattern the immunity of insects including white fly had also become stronger and could not be contained through the use of insecticides. The farmers were confused over damage to crop due to while fly despite use of pesticides, he said. He also informed that NIFA had recently prepared a repellent for white fly which had shown good results, but needed time to reach all the farmers. He said that NIFA wanted to reduce the damage of gourd crop from 70 per cent to 50 per cent and for this purpose they are meeting big farmers in the region. The medicine prepared by NIFA is a bio-pesticide which had no effect on the crop from the human health point of view. He also requested the farmers to meet with the NIFA officials concerned to getting advice about the use of pesticide to protect their crops from damage and to reduce their losses. He said that if due consideration was not given on the reduction of loss of farming community, the winter season cultivation of gourd would be stopped and thousands of people would lose their livelihood. According to a recent report, Pakistan is among the countries most vulnerable to the environment and social and economic impacts of the climate change. Almost 50 per cent of the land area of Pakistan is at the risk of getting affected just because of climate change.