Pakistani scientists have made significant headway in agricultural research and the country will enter into the era of genetically modified cotton once the bio safety guidelines are put in place. This was stated by Federal Food Minister Sikandar Hayat Bosan at an international conference on biotechnology for salinity and drought tolerance in plants. The National Commission on Biotechnology organised the conference here on Thursday in collaboration with Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and United States Science Foundation (USSF).
Sikandar said that salinity and water logging had affected six million hectares of lands in Pakistan causing a 25 percent production loss of the current productivity of crops.
The minister stressed the need for biotechnology solutions to overcome this problem 'properly and urgently'. During the last four years, he added, the water availability in the canal system had reduced by 45 percent and a loss of billions of rupees due to salinity and drought had been caused.
"This situation posses formidable challenge to our scientists to evolve technologies to overcome the problem," the minister said.
He informed the audience that the ministry of environment had almost finalised the bio safety guidelines so that different crops evolved through research could be released for commercial multiplication. "The government during the past few years has spent nearly Rs 600 million on education and research on biotechnology," he added.
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