Punjab Governor, Salman Taseer has emphasised to call joint session of the Parliament to brief elected representatives about the fast emerging food challenges of the nation, so that they could be able to draw a comprehensive strategy to cope with the problem effectively.
He expressed these views, while inaugurating two-day international symposium on "modern approaches and techniques in agriculture to enhance food security in Pakistan" held here on Monday morning. He said that Pakistan is blessed with best land, water resources, and diversification of climatic to meet its food requirements.
He said that rapid climatic changes and depletion of natural resources is a major challenge to the agriculture. "In the changing climate scenario, the yields of many crops would decrease in some regions situated at low latitudes because of the shorter crop growth duration under elevated temperature and will increase at higher latitudes" he said.
The Governor said that Pakistan has best irrigation system in the world although it is not being appreciated to its capacity because of insufficient water storage capacity. Furthermore, he said that Pakistan is experiencing stagnation in agricultural productivity gains due to the structural issues including poor crop management, use of low quality seed, poor agricultural infrastructure, high post harvest losses, limited research and practical application and inadequate funding for research and development.
He said that the climatic change is already causing irrevocable damage to production therefore, UAF should launch agriculture related management courses to overcome the losses caused by mismanagement at different stages right from land levelling to marketing and export of agriculture commodities.
Salman Taseer urged the UAF to introduce degree courses regarding climatology, so that a number of people can be made aware about the changing climate and its impact on agriculture and they can be able to overcome the challenges the climate changes.
Mentioning the gap between our national and world average yield in various crops and he said that we have to find out the means and devise with coherent strategies to bridge up this gap to meet the food demand of more than 180 million people of Pakistan.
The governor also mentioned recent advancement in knowledge, in molecular genetics and genomics and said that our agriculture scientists should make full use of the tools and techniques to address the agriculture problems.
"Transgenic varieties have intrinsic resistance to biotic and abiotic stress, and improved yield and quality have already been developed in various crops. He said and added that these are being cultivated around the world and the area under such crops is increasing swiftly. However we are almost no where in this scientific advancement" he remarked.
The governor urged the speedy development of transgenic plant material in various crops, vegetable and fruits to pace up with the world and enhance agricultural production in the country. Earlier, VC UAF Professor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan in his welcome address said that his university has produced so far 41,650 agriculture graduates which are contributing their effective role in strengthening the national economy.
He said that university has signed more than 50 MoUs with various national and international organisations to reorganise its academic as well as research activities to meet the emerging challenges. Dr Iqrar said that increase in population and climate changes have posed a serious threat to the agriculture sector necessitating a new paradigm shift in agriculture strategies and policies.
Moreover, he expressed concerns over the 6 billion losses due to poor management in various sectors of agriculture and said that scientists have to come up with viable recommendations to overcome these losses. Dr Khan underlined the need in basic changes in agriculture sector through precision, biotechnology, controlled atmosphere technology and post harvest technology to meet the increasing food requirements. He also stressed the need to ensure in time and cheaper agricultural inputs to the farmers enabling them to increase food production.
VC also stressed to establish modern citrus nursery of certified plants through sanitation technique, water use efficiency, sheeshm and mango die back technology, raised bed technology, drip and sprinkle irrigation system, extraction of essential oil from roses by the UAF experts. Dr Amir Muhammad Khan Rector FAST (NU) proposed regulatory authority to monitor the use of underground water for irrigation purposes.
Professor Kadambot Siddique, Chair in Agriculture and Director, Institute of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia Pakistan, Dr Iftikhar Ahmad Khan Dean Agriculture Faculty and Dr Ashfaq Ahmad Chatha also spoke on the occasion. Later, the governor presented mementoes to the scientists and organisers of the symposium.
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