Qualitatively our farmers are not being paid properly; it is time that we should encourage qualitative practice in our agricultural system. This was said by Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research, Syed Fakhar Imam while addressing on the topic of improving the Performance of Agriculture Sector at Institute of Policy Reforms.
He mentioned that our growth rate in agriculture is very behind from our neighboring countries. Use of quality fertilizer, water management, good quality seeds are our major needs in agriculture sector. Syed Fakhar Imam was of the point of view that our poultry industry has come up in a big way which is a good achievement.
He said that in seeds we majorly rely on imported seeds. Improvement in seed technology is a big need of the time .He told that we import oilseed, pulses etc, because we have outdated seed technology. Our seed is not capable of providing high yield. On the other hand our genetic engineering has not brought any major change in the agriculture production.
Our local seed industry has not delivered much to the agri production till now. Punjab Seed Corporation was once providing 33-35% need of the seed in country. The public & private sector should come together to fulfill the need of good quality seed to avoid importing it from other countries.
Syed Fakhar Imam said that Floriculture has a very big market internationally; Holland fulfills 45% demand of the world .We need to change & adopt the new crops which have higher demand internationally.
Our shift from low valued crops to the high value is very much needed. Our cotton production has dropped big time and we have reduced the weight per bale from 170 kg to 150 kg. The leaf curl virus has hitted our cotton production very badly.
Hexsaid that our fruit & vegetable industry is also in a need to be brought up, for fruits we need processing industry. He exclaimed that we have some of the best fruits in the world but due to lack of processing facility its export is not as it should be.
Syed Fakhar Imam emphasized that we have to increase shelf life of our fruits. Most of the times we have to import pesticides as we do not make it our self .We do make fertilizer but the machinery used is all imported and is very much costly.
He said that we should move on to high technology and to adopt change if we want to compete with the world. Many countries have gone through different natural disasters like fires in Australia and many other countries but the kept researching and they never gave up on adopting the latest technology.
We have brought up our olive production; we are researching on olive in the potohar region which indeed is a good step. In barani area we are still on wheat and fodder, we need to adopt change in our agri sector a lot.
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