Sunny Prospects

The Devastation Of Natural Disasters

The most devastating feature of natural disasters is that not only do they inflict immediate damage on the environment & its inhabitants, they leave behind after-effects that can take years to repair. In Pakistan, the most common natural disaster is flooding. Nearly every year, it is the same story: first, a brutal summer schedule of power cuts is implemented, which generally leads to at least a few dozen deaths due to heat stroke; next comes the monsoon season, which promptly tops up the already-almost-full dams; & the grand finale is that the dams burst (or the floodgates are opened) & hundreds of lives & millions of dollars in hard-earned development are lost.

Case in point: The floods of September 2012 took a heavy toll on the farming communities of Sindh Province, Pakistan: 11 dead, 885 injured, 1,000 acres of crops ruined & 300 sheep & goats & 125 buffaloes washed away. But, for once, the response was an honest effort to find a positive & long-term solution. The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization introduced a novel (& profitable) flood rehabilitation strategy: sunflowers...& changed the economic landscape of the affected villages in less than 6 months. Given below is an excerpt from the FAO's report on this experiment (the full story can be found at http://www.fao.org/pakistan/programmes-and-projects/success-stories/project-success-stories/seeds-of-change/en/):

"After evaluating the climate and soil in the area, FAO recommended that the villagers grow sunflower as their main cash crop.  Sunflowers have a much shorter growth period and are more resistant to floods than wheat traditionally grown in the area. In addition to its flood-resistance, FAO identified several other arguments in favour of sunflower: Most of the households in the area use adulterated forms of cooking oil which are extremely bad for human health. The sunflowers could provide the villagers with a much healthier alternative of cooking oil. Moreover, sunflower stalks could be used as fire wood, while leaves can be used for mulching to reduce water consumption in the gardens."

Living Versus Surviving

This monsoon season, as per routine, floods have inflicted serious damage in Pakistan. The authorities are busy patting themselves on the back because "fewer people have died", reportedly due to the various actions of the Armed Forces. While I have never been able to reconcile the concepts of "Human Rights" & "Acceptable Casualty Rates", the most pressing question here is: if a person is robbed of resources & peace of mind, is he or she "alive" or simply "not dead"?

This is actually a far more complex existential question than it would seem at first glance, especially in a country like Pakistan, where law-abiding citizens are deprived of basic telecommunication facilities such as cell signals & Internet service while NADRA finds that some of its ex-Army personnel have distributed around 100,000 (& counting) fake CNICs to career criminals, & where sepoys are authorized to shoot cops if they feel like it while international crime syndicates are apparently either living on other people's agricultural land or hogging the monopoly in the agricultural retail business.

The Sunflower

The South African Department Of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries has done an impressive amount of research on the sunflower. The "Sunflower Production Guideline" can be found at http://www.nda.agric.za/docs/Brochures/prodGuideSunflower.pdf. It covers, in an easy-to-follow format, a concise summary of all practical aspects of sunflower cultivation, including cultivation practices, post-harvest handling, production schedule & utilization. While the brochure focuses on South African climate & soil conditions, the sunflower is a singularly adaptable plant & can grow practically anywhere in Pakistan. According to the South African authorities, sunflowers are useful for more than just cooking oil & firewood. This excerpt from the brochure says it all:

"Human Use - It can be used as edible oil in the form of margarine, salad dressing oil & cooking oil; it can also be used as snacks.

Animal Use - The non-de-hulled or partly de-hulled sunflower meal can be used for ruminant animals, pigs & poultry feed because of its high protein percentage (28-42%). Sunflowers can be used as silage for animal feed. Sunflower silage is richer in nutrients than corn but lower than alfalfa hay.

Industrial Use - It can be used in certain paints, varnishes & plastics because of good semi-drying properties without color modification associated with oils high in linolenic acid. It can also be used to manufacture soaps & detergents. Other industrial uses include production of agrochemicals or pesticides, surfactants, adhesives, fabric softeners, lubricants & coatings. A future high-potential use will be in diesel engines as the world is striving for a non-polluted environment."