ISLAMABAD, Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam here on Monday said that up-gradation of research system and technological advancement were prerequisite for meeting the emerging challenges of food safety and security across the glob.
Addressing the Pre-Summit United Nations Food Security System Meeting on Pakistan Food Security System and Transformation, Imam said that Pakistan was among the densely populated countries and needed to make swift go ahead in its research and development system to meet with growing food demands.
He said that developed economies of the world adopted modern technologies, upgraded their research system and introduced latest solutions to meet their food requirements.
“We in Pakistan are also expanding our research system and collaborating with the universities to involve the youth, which was half of the population to transform local agriculture sector and to make it attractive for them to create entrepreneurship opportunities for them”, he added.
Imam said that Prime Minister was taking keen interest in development of agriculture sector and prosperity of farming communities, adding that special initiatives were also announced to enhance per-acre crop output to ensure availability of food commodities at affordable prices.
Due to the prudent polices of the current government, he said that despite global COVID-19 Pandemic Pakistan had harvested bumper crops of wheat, rice, maize and sugarcane, adding that steps were being taken to promote high value crops to produce imports’ substitutions.
Availability of certified seeds are the major bottleneck in enhancing output of all major and minor crops, he said adding that to address this issue, government had introduced track and trace policy to ensure supply of certified seeds for growers.
He said that under this policy about 30 percent requirements of wheat seed were met in first year, adding that the policy would be implemented on rice and cotton to provide certified quality seeds for enhancing per-acre crop output in the country.
He said that the United Nations Summit was the most important in pretext of global pandemic and finding ways and means to overcome the food safety and security challenges.
Speaking on the occasion, Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on National Food Security Jamshed Iqbal Cheema reiterated the government’s firm commitment for ensuring availability of per-capita food in the country by transforming local agriculture sector.
In order to ensure affordability of food, the government is working on a multi-pronged strategy to enhance income of farming communities across the country, he said adding that it has set a target to bubble the income of farmers in next 5 to 7 years, adding that increasing income would help in expanding the access to food and its affordability.
To produce exportable surplus, the government had taken steps under its Agriculture Transformation Plan for mechanization of local agriculture sector, water conservation, and development of storage facilities, he added.
He said that about 900 agriculture malls would be established across the country with storage, grading and value addition facilities to keep local prices of agriculture commodities at sustainable point.
About government initiatives to ensure food safety and security in the country, he said that government had spent an amount of Rs286 billion under its Ehsaas Program for ensuring access to food for underprivileged segments of the society during time of global pandemic.
While sharing the future strategies of the government to ensure food security in the country, the SAPM said that special attention was being paid on crops losses at harvest and post harvest stages by introducing latest machinery and banning the imports of outdated machinery.
The government would provide 50 percent subsidy on the purchase of machinery and allocated a sum of Rs82 billion for this purpose and provided technical and financial assistance for developing value addition facilities of perishable items to keep their prices smooth throughout the year.
“We are making all out efforts to tackle with increasing demand of food and working to develop more land and for making it cultivable, besides focusing on the production of high value crops like oil seeds, fruits and vegetables”, he added.
Jamshed Iqbal Cheema said that water conservation was another area of focus, adding that in order to safe depleting ground water, government was working on the construction of small, medium and large dams, which would help to bring more area under agriculture use.
Speaking on the occasion, Chairman Pakistan Agriculture Council Dr Muhammad Azeem Khan said that local agriculture sector was facing different challenges like degradation of agriculture land, salinity and desertification, which was posing serious threats for national food security.
He said that the summit was taking place at a time when world was facing global pandemic and in this pretext it has a paramount importance for achieving sustainable development goals.
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