'Country loses over 40 percent of agri produce'

Pakistan is losing more than 40 percent of its agriculture produce due to both pre-and post-harvest losses. Traditionally, the farmers in Pakistan heavily rely on pesticides to avert the losses mainly due to their quick knockdown effect but overuse result in pesticides resistance and pesticides residues.
This was stated by Professor Tariq Butt while speaking at the second technical session at a symposium organized by the UK-Pakistan Science & Innovation Global Network (UPSIGN) on "Pakistan and its Diaspora; Global Challenges and Opportunities."
The symposium was held at University College London discussing the Pakistan's challenges in relation to selected United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and issues around Diaspora identity and wellbeing.
Second technical session was titled as "Pakistan Food Security Challenges" and Professor Tariq Butt further also highlighted the incorrect use of pesticides with regards to human and livestock health, biodiversity/environment and commerce. He also outlined environmentally friendly strategies to solve these issues and create greater crop yields. He stressed the need for technology transfer, local manufacturing, providing training and a need for incentivizing farmers and stakeholders.
Pakistan High Commissioner, Muazam Ali spoke about the importance of UNSDGs for Pakistan as chief guest while UPSIGN chairman, Professor Jawwad Darr and Dr Parveen Ali gave a short overview of UPSIGN, its activities over the last year and signposts for future plans, said the information reached here from UK.
UPSIGN Chairman highlighted some of the issues in Pakistan around large youth population, energy, literacy, education/girl's education, debt issues and how these might be addressed via various initiatives and investments. He ended the talk highlighting the tremendous potential for renewable energy such as solar and wind and also the potential for energy storage technologies in relation to Pakistan.
The third technical talk was on "Health Inequalities in Pakistan" by Dr Parveen Ali. Dr Ali's talk focused on the health inequalities in Pakistan and spoke about these inequalities and social determinants of health and their relevance in Pakistani context. Dr Ali then explored issues such as difference in the population growth rate, life expectancy, infant mortality rate, under 5 mortality rate and maternal mortality rate. Reasons for the differences in the rate of these figures among various countries were explored. An overview of the health care system was also presented and possible approach to deal with the issues was explored.
The last technical talk of the morning session from on "Pakistan's water crisis" by Ms Fazila Nabeel who said that Pakistan was well endowed with water; however this was a crisis of space and time. She highlighted issues around surface water pollution, governance, sharing aquifers between Pakistan.