Pakistan needs to address the factors responsible for low productivity of crops in Pakistan, such as the scarcity of irrigation water, lack of modern agriculture implements and short supply or unavailability of fertilizers at right time.

Federal Secretary Ministry of National Food Security and Research Zafar Hassan said this inaugurating a two-day national conference on ‘Efficient integrated nutrients management technologies for enhancing wheat productivity in Pakistan’, according to WealthPK.

The conference is the brainchild of the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC), as a part of a series of events, aimed at exploring ways to increase the productivity of major and minor crops, including oil seeds and vegetables to tackle with growing domestic needs.

Mr Hassan said the country needed to address many other bottlenecks like costly fertilizers, climate changes, natural calamities, and the lack of understanding about modern research in the agriculture sector impacted growth and development.

The government official highlighted the government’s efforts to promote certified seeds, saying that the Federal Seed Certification and Registration Department (FSC&RD) has been told to make available certified seeds of all major crops to growers so that damage to the national agriculture sector due to recent torrential rains and flash floods in the country could be compensated.

He blamed the unavailability of certified seeds for low productivity of all major crops, including wheat. Other than ensuring the availability of certified seeds, he stressed the need for that proper awareness of farmers about the use of high yielding; certified seeds varieties to convert local growers from use of conventional seeds to high yielding quality seeds enhance productivity of wheat.

Mr Hassan spoke on the economic importance of wheat, saying that the main crop of the country is being grown over 22 million acres to fulfil local dietary needs. The average output of wheat in the country is at 1,500 kilogramme per acre, which is the lowest as compared the output of developed economies of the world.

Mr Hassan said the low productivity of wheat is a test for the government as Pakistan needs to increase the yield to meet the demand of a growing population, adding that under such circumstances, the responsibilities of local agriculture sector has further increased to maintain food security.

He called for using bio-fertilizer to cut reliance on costly imported fertilizers, besides encouraging the production of organic agriculture products for profit maximization as well as protect the local eco-system and environmental degradation.

The federal secretary said the conference would be helpful for drafting an inclusive policy to enhance per-acre output of wheat by sharing the knowledge and experiences of local as well as foreign experts.

PARC Chairman Dr Ghulam Muhammad Ali also spoke on the occasion and explained the working of the council to extend the outcomes of its research and development to the doorsteps of farmers, saying that efforts are being made to ensure provision of high yielding seeds verities to growers.

According to Mr Ali, special focus is being paid on the development of high yielding, diseases free varieties of all major crop including wheat, rice, maize and cotton to enhance per-acre productivity of all these crops to tackle with growing local demand and making the country self-sufficient in agricultural produce.

The director general of the Agriculture Extension of Punjab spoke about e-vouchers based fertilizers subsidy, introduced by the Punjab government. The plan provides a Rs1,000 subsidy on DAP and Rs500 on MPO per bag.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk