ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has described food security as a challenge in the face of rapidly increasing population, and sought an action plan based on long, medium and shortage-term projects to increase agriculture productivity.

While chairing a meeting on reforms in the agriculture sector to increase the agri-productivity to meet the food security challenges, the prime minister on Wednesday said that ensuring food security was very important and directed the Ministry of National Food Security and Research to present an action plan based on long, medium and short-term projects with a timeline to increase the productivity and develop the farm sector on modern lines. The prime minister also wanted projection of production of various crops in the country based on accurate data. He directed the Ministry of National Food, Security and Research to accelerate the process of preparing a dashboard by taking onboard provincial governments and other stakeholders. “Pakistan can benefit from the Chinese experience to develop the agriculture sector on modern lines,” he added.

The prime minister also wanted that special attention should be paid on economic zones for the processing of agriculture products as the meeting was briefed on the food security challenges in view of the growing population, current status of production of agricultural commodities, and progress on the Prime Minister’s Agriculture Emergency Programme.

The prime minister also directed agro-ecological zones should be revisited and farmers should be attracted to grow olives, pulse commodities whose demand was being met through imports.

The meeting was given briefing on progress made so far on the Prime Minister’s Emergency Agriculture Programme, and measures taken to increase the productivity of farm sector and to develop it on modern lines.

The meeting was attended by the Minister for National Food Security Research, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, the secretary Ministry of Food and other officials related to the agriculture sector.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020