"Over the last three years, the volume of agriculture credit has been increased from Rs 336 billion to Rs 600 billion. For 2016-17 the volume of agriculture credit target was increased to Rs 700 billion," said Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan while addressing at inaugural session of two-day 3rd International Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Biotechnology on Wednesday.
The event was organised by PARC in the collaboration with COMSATS, CIMMYT and ISESCO. Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan on called for establishing Islamic biotechnology center in order to develop the agriculture and related sectors for the socio-economic prosperity of Muslim countries.
He said that government believes that practical collaboration among the Muslim countries in the cutting edge areas of modern biotechnology was the need of time. Scientists from different countries including Turkey, Iran, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Tanzania and Egypt are taking part in the conference.
He said that the government is also taking various steps to encourage and promote smart agricultural practices to build the resilience of agriculture sector. Pakistan has improved its crop yield and productivity over the years and now it is producing surplus wheat, maize, potato and sugarcane, he said. However, environment and climate are the major external factors that impact agricultural growth leading to food insecurity, he said. Bosan said that scientists and biotechnologists in Pakistan have achieved the diversification in seed development and moved to a higher value added seeds, particularly in the crops sector. Like other countries, Pakistan also took bold step towards adoption of modern biotechnology and established over 45 biotechnology centres across the country, he said.
Dr Kausar Abdullah Malik, former Chairman Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), said that Pakistan was regarded one of the pioneers in the field of biotechnology research but it lost its position due to various reasons. Pakistan was the candidate to host the international centre for engineering and biotechnology in early 80s, he recalled. "Now we will have to work very hard to implement new technology-based research results on our fields."
He said that in Pakistan subsequent governments invested heavily in development of biotechnology in the country. "We have sent hundreds of students abroad and now we have expertise in biotechnology in every aspect of agriculture, health, environment and industries," he said. Malik said that unfortunately there is a perception in the country that biotechnology will destroy biodiversity. But these perceptions never schematically proved true, he said.
Chairman PARC Dr Yusuf Zafar said that use of new technology is essential for every aspect of agriculture sector. He said, "This is the era of knowledge and, therefore, we need to take serious steps towards knowledge-based research to achieve our goals." Zafar further said that PARC has worked a lot in the field of biotechnology and now there are biotechnology centres in all provinces of Pakistan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017