The rupees five-billion "Crop maximisation project" has been initiated in 109 villages of Sindh, NWFP, Balochistan, Punjab and Azad Kashmir with the assistance of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The main objectives of the project are to supplement the country's ongoing efforts to increase the food product through crop productivity, ensure food security and alleviate poverty in rural areas through improving income of small farmers and build a mechanism for sustaining productivity enhancement and food security programme.
Official sources told Business Recorder that the project was being carried out in 49 villages of Punjab, 28 of Sindh, 13 of NWFP, 14 of Balochistan and five villages of Azad Kashmir.
Special attention has been focused on increasing productivity for improving food security and meet rapidly growing food demands as well as to reduce seasonal and year-to-year variability in production on economically and environmentally sustainable basis.
The project would provide assistance to the farmers covering three main crops of wheat, rice and cotton and small crops like pulses, oilseeds, maize and fodder, sources added. The project would be supportive in bringing boom in per acre yield of crops and help reduce poverty scale.