By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Minister for National Food Security and Research, Syed Fakhar Imam on Monday reaffirmed the government’s commitment to ensure availability of pest resistant and climate tolerant high yielding seed verities of all major crops including wheat, rice, cotton and sugarcane in order to tackle with climate changes challenges besides maintaining food safety and security.
Addressing the closing session of a seminar on “Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture†, organized by Four Brothers Group Pakistan, the minister said that Pakistan was among the most vulnerable countries facing challenges of climate change and local agricultural sector suffered more from it.
In order to cope with these threats to maintain food safety and security, he said that advancement in seed technology and genetic engineering were of the utmost importance, adding that advance seeds production techniques would not only help to enhance output but will also help to adapt changing climate and overcome water scarcity issues.
The minister also highlighted the achievements in local wheat, cotton and sugarcane crops and measures to further promote major cash crops , besides initiatives of the government to promote value addition of these commodities for making the agriculture more competitive and profit oriented.
He further informed that a large quantum of standing crop was destroyed due to untimely rains and pest attacks, adding that applied research was vital to tackle with such challenges as well as to facilitate farmers to avoid losses.
Pakistan has started work with China as well for the exchange of information for research regarding agriculture technology and genetic engineering, he said adding that joint collaboration would help to transform agriculture in highly productive and profit oriented sector.
Fakhar Imam further informed that the Ministry of National Food Security was also working on seed traceability, germination, capacity of production and purity of seed to facilitate the farmers in order to fulfill the local requirements seed to enhance output, adding that cotton seed was the primary focus.
The minister said that his ministry was in process for finalizing subsidy scheme for the cotton seed, pesticide and fertilizer and set up a minimum support price in order to encourage the local farming community for bringing the maximum land under crop production.
Syed Fakhar Imam lauded the efforts of scientists for the betterment of the agricultural sector and hoped that the local agricultural sector would soon start receiving the results as the government was determined to use all the possible resources on research and development of agriculture sector.
