LAHORE: Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Friday called for a thorough review of agriculture policies to tackle food issues in near future due to increasing population.
LCCI President Sheikh Muhammad Arshad, Senior Vice President Almas Hyder and Vice President Nasir Saeed said here that if steps were not taken on war footing, food security would be a major problem as billions dollars on imports would have to spend for feeding population.
Sheikh Arshad said, "If we stay where we are today in terms of cropped area and yield per hectare, we will have 30 percent less food available per capita in next two decades.
That though Pakistan's almost 43 percent labour force is dependent upon agriculture, the yield gap in the four major crops of Pakistan is three times from the best producers in the world such as China and Egypt."
He added that low yield had contributed to the poverty in rural areas besides forcing country to import agriculture produces to feed its population.
The LCCI President said that fact should be an eye-opener that China produced two times more cotton and wheat per hectare and Egypt produced around three times more rice and sugarcane per hectare as compared to Pakistan.
"Factors which are recommended to improve agri yield are through large scale introduction of hybrid seeds and mechanized farming, high efficienty irrigation systems such as drip irrigation and reduction in wastage of crop through introduction of privately owned storage facilities and cold storage facilities," he added.
The LCCI office-bearers said that 21st century belonged to biotechnology and Pakistan had tremendous potential to emerge as biotechnology leader but to achieve the goal private sector, scientists, researchers and government would have to work hand in hand.
Pakistan's agriculture sector was losing heavily due to insufficient utilization of biotechnology as the magic progress of agriculture sector was only due to genetically modified crops.
They said that agriculture sector had a huge potential and continued to be the single largest and dominant driving force for growth as well as the main source of livelihood for 66 percent of Pakistan's population.
But the agri sector had always faced two major problems: first, production per acre was low than many countries and secondly, around 40 percent of production was wasted in the form of post-harvest losses due to insufficient utilization of biotechnology.
The SVP Almas Hyder said that federal and provincial governments should give a special focus on promotion of research and quality crops because green revolution was only possible through genetic engineering.
They said, Pakistan would have to focus on genetically modified and hybrid crops to tap true potential of agricultural productivity in the country.
Stressing the need for establishment of institutes both at provincial and federal levels for creating awareness among the farming community about Genetically Modified (GM) technology, he said that sustainability and improvement in crops yield were the major challenges to meet upcoming threats of increasing population and depleting water resources.
He said, "Biotechnology has shown considerable potential to raise agricultural productivity by addressing problems not solved through conventional research.
Among other application of biotechnology, development of genetically modified organasims is the promising tool to facilitate plant breeding in development of crops to insect and tolerant to herbicide,"
The VP Nasir Saeed said that genetic modified crops had contributed to sustainable development in several significant ways including: contributing to food security and more affordable food, conserving biodiversity, alleviation of poverty and hunger, mitigating climate change and reducing greenhouses gases, contributing to the cost-effective production of biofuels and above all by contributing to sustainable economic benefits.
The genetically modified crops had an important role to play in lessening the environmental impact and improving the sustainability of food production.
The LCCI office-bearers called for improving performance of 400 research institutions in the country and they urged for patronize scientists working for the technology promotion and its upgradation in the country.
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