Solar power is transforming agriculture in Pakistan. But in a country already facing water scarcity and extreme weather, some fear their widespread use could cause problems.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Solar power is transforming agriculture in Pakistan. Farmers are using it to run water pumps that lower their electricity costs and boost production. But in a country already facing water scarcity and extreme weather, some fear this will create new problems. Betsy Joles has more.

BETSY JOLES, BYLINE: Muhammad Abdullah (ph) stands alongside a tub full of minnows. It’s part of the fish farm he helps run in Sallhoke Chatha, in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

MUHAMMAD ABDULLAH: Maripa (ph) silver, bighead grass.

JOLES: He lists off some of the species wriggling in the water below. Once these fish are mature enough, they’ll be moved to man-made ponds outside. The water in them needs to be changed frequently. Otherwise, the fish will die. For that, Abdullah uses well water pumped from the ground by a solar-powered motor. The pumps run for around 11 hours a day in the summer, cutting the farm’s energy bill by about half.

ABDULLAH: (Non-English language spoken).

JOLES: Only those who have a lot of money can work without solar, Abdullah says. Many in this area got into fish farming because staple crops like wheat and corn didn’t grow well there. Thanks to solar, access to groundwater has become much cheaper. But Mudassar Kharal, another fish farmer from the area, says no one is really keeping an eye on how much of it is being used.

MUDASSAR KHARAL: There is no check and balance.

JOLES: Some Pakistani water experts warned that solar-powered pumps could worsen the country’s over-extraction of groundwater. Bashir Ahmad, director of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, says their use is particularly concerning in areas that are otherwise unfit for farming.

BASHIR AHMAD: Adoption of this saltwater pumping in those areas is really scary.

JOLES: Since 2023, there’s been a push to cultivate some unproductive lands under the army-backed Green Pakistan Initiative. It’s mostly focused on large-scale corporate farming and promotes the use of solar-powered pumps in arid parts of the country like Balochistan. Proponents believe it will help bring farming up to date with high-efficiency irrigation. Critics say it only adds to water woes. Here’s news about a thousand acres of barren land being developed under the project from Pakistani broadcaster ARY.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Green Pakistan Initiative (non-English language spoken).

JOLES: Pakistan’s agriculture industry is supported by a river-fed canal system. But the country’s reliance on groundwater has steadily increased in the past few decades as pressure on farmers has grown. Researcher Khalid Jamil wanted to find out whether farmers using solar to power their pumps were extracting more groundwater than those using diesel. His Ph.D. findings, published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Research last year, found that in 77% of cases surveyed, they were.

KHALID JAMIL: It’s just human behavior. If you get something free, you do not feel the need to save it.

JOLES: That means extra stress on the already overburdened aquifer that Pakistan draws from.

(SOUNDBITE OF HORSE NEIGHING)

JOLES: The paradox is that for individual farmers using solar, water has become one less thing to worry about.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE CHUGGING)

JOLES: In the Punjabi village of Kot Ratta Sakhi, farmer Ibrar Hussain (ph) still relies on diesel-powered pumps to irrigate his rice fields. Solar panels are top of his mind.

IBRAR HUSSAIN: (Non-English language spoken).

JOLES: “Everyone has put them up. We also want to put them up and benefit from them,” he says. The question is whether Pakistan can afford any unintended consequences.

For NPR News, I’m Betsy Joles in Punjab Province, Pakistan.

Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.