Bureau Report
LAHORE: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Food Security Jamshed Iqbal Cheema on Sunday said that under ‘Prime Minister’s Agriculture Transformation Plan’ balance would be created among farmer, consumer and industry.
Addressing a press conference here, he said that basically agriculture supplied food, feed and fiber and all challenges in this regard would be handled.
He said, “Each individual all over the world consumes 370 kilo grams grains and in Pakistan per capita consumption of grains is 200 kilo grams.”
The SAPM said that almost every year, each person across the world consumed 210 Kg of fruits and vegetables whereas in Pakistan per capita consumption of fruits and vegetables was 63 Kg. In Pakistan per day, each person consumed 100 calories, he added. Jamshed Cheema said, “We need 40 million tonnes of feed for our animals and we are producing 13 million tonnes.” He said there was a need to improve nourishment of humans and animals in the country.
He said that before Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government came into power federal government budget for agriculture sector was between Rs 1.15 billion to Rs 1.60 billion.
He said this year the incumbent government had allocated Rs 53 billion for agriculture sector, adding that this allocation was 40 times more than that of previous year.
He said that government was focusing on greenifying all possible land besides utilizing each drop of surface water for harvesting purpose. He further said that all out efforts were being made to save water.
The Special Assistant said that country had a potential of growing over 1 billion trees of olive and so far 4.1 million olive trees had been planted. He said that grafting of wild olives was underway to make fruit giving trees.
Upscaling of nurseries was also being carried out which would ultimately help plant maximum olive trees, he added. He further said that total production of rice, wheat and maize was 44 million tonnes and the government wanted to increase this production up to 80 million tonnes. He said that textile industry was confident that country’s textile export would reach a figure of 50 billion dollars.
He said this year in Balochistan cotton had been cultivated on area of 350,000 acres of land and he hoped that this year 9 million cotton bales would be produced easily.
