This is a great thread. I would try to contribute as best as I can. There are so many ideas but ideas alone won't make any difference unless until we start to implement. I will therefore go through the ideas already presented and try to elaborate on them:
Adopting a village/school as mentioned by some is a great idea and best way to uplift people/youth. One can crowd fund and start with improving the village with clean water, sewerage (also sewerage treatment plant... most important), school, roads and if possible Gas/Electricity provision. These could lift the quality of life and help the environment as well (in terms of sewerage treatment). Tree planting and parks within the boundaries of the villages (Government or Villagers could set a village boundary). This idea is close to my heart as it improve quality of life and create excellent communities.
Crops: Some have mentioned cultivation of wheat, soybean etc. The Soybean crop is a tough one as it only yields around 1.25 tonnes per acre (about Rs40-50k revenue) and I am not sure if a small farmer can benefit from it. It is some times better to invest in fruit production i.e. citrus, papaya, banana or just trees for wood.... I believe the cash crops should be cultivated by farmers with a substantial land holdings so that if there are bad years they can sustain the losses and still able to farm.
It is very critical that we adopt drip irrigation as the future holds much more difficult time for agriculture in the form of water shortage and climate change. Drip irrigation will reduce labour cost as watering a corn field or an orchard could be done by one man. Here one could have a sub surface drip irrigation (Company: Netafim) which could water an entire field in one go (could be 25 acres or 1000 acres). Spoon feeding water as well as fertiliser. Saving water and fertiliser. If I had the money I would deploy this irrigation system.
Education: The above comment on adopting village/school should cater for this point as it could benefit the community two fold by teaching the kids at school in the day and afternoon/evening classes for the adults/senior citizens which could teach them about new techniques in agriculture as well as other things.
Processing (value add): So after the production of crops, fruits and veg. These should be processed further for either domestic consumption or export. I could name a few things like Tomatoes, Oranges, Mangos, Papaya, Guava etc could be processed into juices, drinks and pulp etc. Pakistan is one of the top 10 producer of Dates but none are sold as premium product. Example could be Medjool dates could easily be cultivated and exported in large quantities but will need attention to detail in production and processing to excellent standard.
Now comes to the question how would I contribute:
If I had money/resource and security that people won't try to defraud (this means need land reforms, transparent sales/transfer of land and where judiciary doesn't allow every tom/dick and harry to file a case against anyone) me then I would cultivate the cash crops and process them at farm and sell them to end user. For example
Adopting a village/school as mentioned by some is a great idea and best way to uplift people/youth. One can crowd fund and start with improving the village with clean water, sewerage (also sewerage treatment plant... most important), school, roads and if possible Gas/Electricity provision. These could lift the quality of life and help the environment as well (in terms of sewerage treatment). Tree planting and parks within the boundaries of the villages (Government or Villagers could set a village boundary). This idea is close to my heart as it improve quality of life and create excellent communities.
Crops: Some have mentioned cultivation of wheat, soybean etc. The Soybean crop is a tough one as it only yields around 1.25 tonnes per acre (about Rs40-50k revenue) and I am not sure if a small farmer can benefit from it. It is some times better to invest in fruit production i.e. citrus, papaya, banana or just trees for wood.... I believe the cash crops should be cultivated by farmers with a substantial land holdings so that if there are bad years they can sustain the losses and still able to farm.
It is very critical that we adopt drip irrigation as the future holds much more difficult time for agriculture in the form of water shortage and climate change. Drip irrigation will reduce labour cost as watering a corn field or an orchard could be done by one man. Here one could have a sub surface drip irrigation (Company: Netafim) which could water an entire field in one go (could be 25 acres or 1000 acres). Spoon feeding water as well as fertiliser. Saving water and fertiliser. If I had the money I would deploy this irrigation system.
Education: The above comment on adopting village/school should cater for this point as it could benefit the community two fold by teaching the kids at school in the day and afternoon/evening classes for the adults/senior citizens which could teach them about new techniques in agriculture as well as other things.
Processing (value add): So after the production of crops, fruits and veg. These should be processed further for either domestic consumption or export. I could name a few things like Tomatoes, Oranges, Mangos, Papaya, Guava etc could be processed into juices, drinks and pulp etc. Pakistan is one of the top 10 producer of Dates but none are sold as premium product. Example could be Medjool dates could easily be cultivated and exported in large quantities but will need attention to detail in production and processing to excellent standard.
Now comes to the question how would I contribute:
If I had money/resource and security that people won't try to defraud (this means need land reforms, transparent sales/transfer of land and where judiciary doesn't allow every tom/dick and harry to file a case against anyone) me then I would cultivate the cash crops and process them at farm and sell them to end user. For example
Corn to feed for animals which produce milk/meat then
milk/cheese to consumer. Wheat to flour to end user. I could go on with ideas but maybe for another day.