LAHORE: Privatisation of provincial agricultural research institutions, especially Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI), under the “Agricultural Transformation” programme will ruin the local research institutions and give a free hand to the national and multi-national private sector companies to sell seed and other agricultural inputs to farmers at their own conditions and price. Agricultural scientists said that there are weaknesses in the agricultural research sector but scientists should be encouraged through incentives, promotions and training to put in more efforts instead of giving reins of these institutions in the hands of private sector.
Pakistan Agricultural Scientists (PAS) Forum President Hafiz Muhammad Wasi, ex-DG Extension Agriculture Punjab Ghulam Abbas Jalvi, Dr Khansa Khakwani and Sadia Sultana demanded this while reacting to the proposal of privatisation of four big agricultural research institutes dealing with wheat, rice, maize and sugarcane crops.
Addressing at a press conference at the Lahore Press Club here on Wednesday, Ghulam Abbas Jalvi was of the view that the plan is to hire services of a man from the private sector up to 65 years of age to head a research institute for three years on a monthly salary of Rs 4 million.
He said that gestation period of any new crop variety is 7-10 years then how anybody from private sector can give result in three years.
He doubted these institutes had decades old germplasm and giving institutions into hands of private sector means that it would be on their will how to use it thus violating the plant breeders’ rights. He said that if this germplasm shifted abroad then it would also be an irreparable loss to the country and may lead it to famine.
Scientists claimed that AARI was an important infrastructure of Pakistan just like canal system in the country. They claimed that many new varieties were in the pipeline or ready to come into market. They also claimed that 90 percent of the under cultivation area in Punjab is sown with the crops developed by these institutes. They also claimed that bumper crop of wheat this year was also the result of varieties released by these institutions.
They said no doubt the government wanted development of agriculture but advisers were putting distorted facts to the Prime Minister and dubbing existing varieties as cause of low per acre yield. They claimed that actual reasons are fake pesticides, small landholdings, expensive fertilizers, electricity and shortage of water.
They said that the government should devise a “national plan” setting its priorities and dimensions and promote agriculture by incentivizing research sector, having training collaborations for scientists with leading agricultural economies such as China, having zoning system and developing new centers for cotton and other crops seeds.
They said that it would help producing local verified seeds which could reduce the input cost of the grower and lower the bill used on import of seeds.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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