LAHORE: The Punjab agriculture department has established a modern nursery in Jhang district for the promotion of date palm cultivation in the low-rainfall areas of the province.
In addition to eight popular Pakistani varieties, seven varieties have been imported from the Middle East and Saudi Arabia to develop quality plants for farmers.
The nursery, hopefully, will start supplying quality plants to the farmers in the next few years which will also help increase export of date, said Chief Scientist of Ayub Agriculture Research Institute (AARI) Malik Muhammad Nawaz Khan Maikan.
He was briefing Additional Secretary Agriculture (Planning) Punjab Shireen Naz about the projects being carried out by the AARI under the Annual Development Programme (ADP) on Wednesday.
Maikan further informed that the installation of the high tunnel has been completed in accordance with international standards at the agricultural research Institute for vegetables. In which research will be done on the hybrid varieties of high value crops, ginger, tomato, cucumber, chilli, cauliflower etc and local hybrid varieties of these vegetables will be introduced to the farmers. With this research process, it will be possible to save valuable foreign exchange spent on importing seeds of foreign varieties of vegetables.
During the briefing, he drew the attention of the additional secretary towards importance of foreign training to the scientists working on various crops, especially vegetables and livestock. He sought an early approval in this regard.
The additional secretary Agriculture while speaking on this occasion said the future of the country's agriculture is linked to high-value agriculture, especially the production of fruits and vegetables and the increase in agricultural exports.
She called upon the agricultural scientists to speed up research on new varieties of wheat, cotton, paddy, corn, fruits, vegetables, pulses and oilseeds and take steps to deliver seeds of new varieties to the farmers as soon as possible.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022