Guard Agricultural Research & Services (Ltd) & Chinese hybrid rice giant Longping Hi-tech is all set to introduce a heat resistant long grain variety for commercial sowing in Pakistan named as 'LP18' from the next year. Sindh is experiencing extreme heat for the last some years and temperature hovers around 50 degree Celsius during rice season causing damage to the yield and quality. Pakistani Company Guard and Chinese Longping, after continuous research of two years, are introducing the new heat-tolerant variety having high yield potential as well.
Shahrukh Malik, Senior Executive Guard Agricultural Research & Services, made this announcement while talking to a select group of journalists who visited the trail field of said variety and attended a 'Farmers Day' ceremony organised by the Company in Larkana recently. Guard's General Manager (Agri) Rizwan Younis, Dr. Abdur Rasheed and a large number of farmers were also present on this occasion.
Malik said their company is working on introducing hybrid seeds of different crops and vegetables with major focus on rice which could face the rage of climate change and produce more. He also disclosed that they are working on a plan to produce 95 per cent of the total hybrid rice seed being used in Pakistan within the country. "It will reduce our dependence on imports and save precious foreign exchange," he added. He said their goal is to achieve this target by year 2020 and bring Pakistan into the ranks of rice seed exporting club. He said presently their company is enjoying around 50 per cent share of the hybrid rice seed market.
Longping High-Tech representative Tian said on this occasion that they were working in the agricultural sector of Pakistan for the last 20 years. He disclosed that his company in collaboration with its Pakistani counterpart is enjoying lion's share of the hybrid rice market. He disclosed that more research is underway to produce saline resistance, Basmati hybrid and more heat tolerant varieties.
Appreciating the love and welcome they received in Pakistan, he said they are just not selling seeds but transferring technology to their partners. He said both the companies also exported a small consignment of rice seed recently on pilot basis.
Larkana Chamber of Commerce & Industry President Abdul Ghaffar Sheikh speaking at the event regretted that the government departments had failed to give any new high yielding rice seed to the growers. Appreciating the efforts of Guard Group, he said the present government should pay attention towards rice crop which was the second best foreign exchange earner for the country.
Sheikh also criticized the government for having a strong check on the prices of agricultural inputs. He said Urea and DAP bags had registered an increase of Rs 150 each in their prices during first 50-60 days of the present government. He termed it as a big injustice with the growers which were already not having handsome returns on their crops besides facing many other problems such as delayed payments from the buyers.
It may be recalled here that the Company had already introduced a long grain variety in collaboration with the Chinese company in Badin which is getting more yield than even in China due to favorable climate of Sindh for long grain rice.