Punjab Agriculture Minister Khurshid Zaman Qureshi has urged upon the agriculture scientists to divert the direction of their agriculture research activities towards the formulation of agriculture packages based on modern technology for the tillers in order to meet the challenges confronted to the country in the food sector in the changing times.
He was addressing of the concluding session of annual programme of Research Work for Kharif crop 2008 at Ayub Agriculture Research Institute (AARI) here.
Director General (Research) AARI Dr Muhammad Rasheed, Director General Agriculture Punjab (Extension) Dr Anjum Buttar, Chief Executive Punjab Agriculture Research Board (PARB) Dr Mubarak Ali the scientists from other provinces and farmer representatives drawn from all over the country were present on the occasion.
The minister underlined the importance to save the available water resources and said that the establishment of new dams in the country was the extensive need of the hour in order to overcome the problems of shortage of energy and irrigation water. The minister said that the quality of agriculture research would be improved considerably with the full cooperation and participation of scientists of all agriculture research institutions including the scientists from other provinces.
The minister agriculture emphasised the importance of adopting balanced approach for the development of agriculture technology and said that scientists should develop technological packages for the management of crops from sowing till the harvesting.
Qureshi stated that improved art of mechanisation was essential for increasing agriculture productivity and the scientists should find long-term solutions of ever emerging agriculture problems like plant diseases, soil health, cropping patterns and cropping intensity etc. The minister stressed the importance of importing modern farm machinery from other countries and adopting it according to local conditions.
"It was pity that despite abundant water resources we were facing the problems of power shortage, which can be tackled by better harnessing these natural water resources" the minister added.
Earlier Dr Muhammad Rashid in his welcome address informed that AARI had started the practice of consulting scientists from other research institutions, provinces and farmers to finalise the research programmes of the institute. "This useful practice had helped immensely for improving quality of agriculture research, Dr Rashid informed the meeting.