Agriculture sector to face new challenges from global warming

The country's agriculture sector would face 'significant' challenges in the face of 'water stress' conditions and 'short crop duration' in the coming decade due to global warming.
According to sources, Islamabad was put on high alert when a United Nations agency report on global warming and climatic change said that rising temperatures and lesser rainfall would significantly affect Pakistan, India and some African countries in the coming decade.
The report particularly mentioned that Pakistan was included in the list of countries which are more vulnerable to negative effects of the disastrous environmental phenomenon, if not dealt with properly. Sources said that this alarming issue also came under lengthy discussion in the 87th meeting of the Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) on October 23, 2007.
They said that realising the seriousness of the report, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had convened a meeting of concerned ministries for planning and taking concrete steps to cope with the challenge of global warming, particularly in the agriculture sector.
The report said that the fast-intensifying and poorly checked global warming would lead to "early maturity of crops" resulting in serious problems like "short crop duration" and "water stress conditions" which would further adversely affect the yields, sources said.
The FCA meeting was told that the government was thinking of taking precautionary measures like providing the farmers with a complete package of crop husbandry practices, they said.
The crop husbandry practices, they said, would include adjustment in sowing times of crops, provision of early maturity, introducing heat-resistant and less water-consuming varieties of crops, adjustment in the application of inputs, and crop harvesting timings.
The meeting also stressed that the crop husbandry practices package, to be given to the farmers, should be yield enhancing in view of the fast increasing food needs of a burgeoning population of the country.
According to sources, the government had called upon the research organisations, both at the federal and provincial levels, to come up and play their due role in tackling the future-threatening scenario.
Surprisingly, a top ranking official in the Sindh Agriculture Department expressed his incognisance to the issue, which is a matter of grave concern for the agrarian Pakistan and around 70 percent of its population who live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihood. "I am not updated on the topic due to extensive engagement in other works...I will brief you as soon as I get information on the subject", the official said.