It is my great pleasure and privilege to congratulate Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) scientists and staff on the occasion of Silver Jubilee of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, PARC deserves our commendations for its achievements in sustaining the momentum of green revolution through excellence in agricultural research and innovations.
The Government accords high priority to agricultural research and development to meet the challenges of food security, poverty reduction and market competitiveness.
The Medium Term Development Framework (2005-2010) sets out ambitious targets for growth in the agriculture sector with emphasis on high value agriculture, improved productivity, profitability and exports. These targets can only be achieved if agriculture is led by a viable, innovative, and productive research system in the country.
PARC has a strategic role to play in advancing agricultural research and is mandated to stay on the forefront of scientific and technological advances by implementing the national agricultural research strategy consistent with the agricultural development objectives envisaged in the MTDF (2005-2010) and Vision 2030.
During the 1980 and 1990, the national agricultural research system led by PARC has been instrumental in the development and dissemination of green revolution technologies leading to more than doubling of yield of major crops, achieving food security, reducing rural poverty, increasing farm income and improving quality of life in rural Pakistan Overtime, however, rising cost of these technologies, negative impact on environment and decline in total factor productivity and profitability have emerged as major constraints. Accordingly, there is a need for new strategy and research paradigm to develop new technologies which are less intensive on resources and more profitable to farmers.
Since 2005-06, PARC has undertaken several initiatives to make its research system more efficient, vibrant, and responsive to the emerging challenges. The recent paradigm shift from green revolution to gene revolution, from conventional agriculture to high value agriculture and from domestic to global markets have underscored the need for strategic research on technologies which on the one-hand are pro-small farmers, pro-poor and pro-nature, and on the other competitive in the global markets. I am confident that PARC management team and scientists along with their counterparts in the provincial agricultural research system will continue to strive achieving the growth targets set for the MTDF and the millennium development goals (MDG) for the agriculture sector.
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