LAHORE: Center for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI) and the Punjab Agriculture Department (PAD) here on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch collaborative efforts for establishing E-plant clinics facilitating farmers in diagnosing crop diseases and achieving the national food security.
Under this agreement, the network of plant clinics will be digitized to diagnose plant diseases which will help in control of harmful insects and diseases to increase agricultural production. Under this program, plant clinics would be digitized to provide timely awareness of crop pest control and effective strategies for their remediation.
Apart from this, small farmers will be provided with solutions to crop related problems. A digital advisory would be issued on their mobile phones. A commercial bio-control laboratory would be established in Muzaffargarh for the large-scale breeding of friendly insects in Punjab which would help in provision of friendly insects to the farmers for the control of crop insects / pests.
Secretary Agriculture Punjab Wasif Khurshid speaking on this occasion said that since 2012, the Department of Agriculture had been running plant-wise programs with 700 plant clinics in the province but to meet the nutritional needs of the growing population, the dangers of climate change and to prevent the possible spread of pests, harmful insects and diseases effective measures should be taken so as to increase per acre yield.
He further said that Pakistan was among the six countries that were ensuring food security through the diagnosis and control of crop diseases under the Plant Wise Plus program.
Director General Agriculture (Extension), Punjab Dr. Muhammad Anjum Ali said that the ongoing plant clinics program would be made more effective for timely diagnosis of crop diseases. He said that so far, more than 0.4 million farmers across the province had benefited from this facility. Now, under this agreement, the Agriculture Department would ensure timely guidance and effective measures for the control of pests and diseases to the farmers through digitized plant clinics.
On this occasion, Senior Regional Director for CABI Asia, Dr. Babar Ehsan Bajwa said that the entire system would be digitized through the collaboration of Agriculture Department, Punjab and CABI which would reduce the attack of pests and diseases on crops. He further said that the Center for Agriculture and Biosciences International (CABI) had so far provided practical training to 1400 workers of the Agriculture (Extension) who were serving at plant clinics.
Plant Wise Program for Pakistan Country Coordinator, Dr Naeem Aslam said that this program would be a game changer by reducing crop losses and increase farmers’ income, thereby enabling food safety and security in the country.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023