LAHORE - Punjab Agriculture Minister Ahmad Ali Olakh has said all available resources are being utilised to enhance agricultural yield in the province and work is in progress on a plan to ensure nutritious and healthy food to the people.
He was speaking at Bio Tech workshop at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday.
He said per acre yield was on the decline because research work was not benefiting farmers owing to the communications gap.
He said the share of agriculture sector in the GDP had fallen to 20 per cent from 38 per cent, which was a matter of great concern for the government.
In order to boost agriculture growth, Olakh said, the government was planning to enhance resources for farm research. “Livestock sector is being facilitated through a separate allocation for research and development.”
He said the Punjab government was concerned over shortage of fertiliser and was in constant contact with the Centre to ensure availability of fertilisers to the farmers.
On mechanised farming, the minister said the government was spending a sizeable amount for the promotion of mechanised farming.
Speaking on the occasion, LCCI President Mian Muzaffar Ali said the government would have to take concrete measures for the promotion of agriculture sector “as the future lies with agro dollar not petro dollar.” He said Pakistan despite being an agro-based economy and having abundant resources was not performing the way it should.
He said the sector was facing two major problems. First, production per hectare is lower than many countries. For instance, per hectare output of wheat is only 2.5 tons compared to 4.5 tons in India and 6.2 tons in Egypt.
Sugarcane production per hectare is 45.1 tons compared to 65.2 tons in India and 90.9 tons in Egypt.
Potato production is 17.2 tons per hectare compared to 20 tons in India and 23.8 tons in Egypt. Second, 40 per cent of the production is lost post-harvest due to lack of preservation.
He said Pakistan was the fifth largest producer of milk in the world but unfortunately it preserved a small quantity due to lack of bio-technology and cool chain system.
Similarly, he added “floriculture is not very well developed in Pakistan.
We need to use genetically modified varieties of flowers for value addition and to maximise our income from floriculture.”
In the end, Dr Shahid and Dr Tayyab gave presentations on the subject of biotechnology.
Copyright: The International News
