Researchers, stakeholders urged to formulate horticulture policy

Pakistan is blessed with diversified agro-ecological conditions suitable to grow more than 30 fruits as there was a tremendous potential of increasing per acre production of these crops as well as introducing new crops on commercial scale, so to harness the export potential, researchers and other stakeholders need to formulate a horticultural policy.
This was stated by Former Speaker National Assembly, Chairman National Forum on Agriculture, Planning Commission of Pakistan, Syed Fakhar Imam while addressing the participants of one-day horticulture conference (Fruits) at University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) on Thursday.
He said that the area of fruits had increased from 464 thousand hectares in 1991-92 to 857 thousand hectares in 2008-09 showing an increase of 185% whereas the production of fruits increased from 3989 thousand tons to 7052 thousand tons showing an increase of 177%. Thus the situation reflects that per hectare yield of different fruits has not shown any change during past two decades and the increase in production resulted from increase in area.
Imam revealed that Brazil used to be the backyard of the United States of America 13 years back now stood as a strong competitor of the US in many fields including horticultural trade. He emphasised the need to fill the yield gap of about 60-80% for different crops as compared to different countries of the world as progressive growers who adopted improved technologies were getting 2-3 times higher yield than the average yield which show that there was enough room for improvements.
He expressed his dismay over dying trees of mangoes adding 20 years old trees were dying and urged the scientists to investigate the issue properly. Imam told that China and India were the strong competitors and their GDP growth rate is 9-10 percent whereas Pakistan was far behind them with 2.0 GDP growth rate due to recent flood and energy crisis. He termed the current year as bonanza for cotton and sugarcane growers as they happened to get substantial profit in their crops. He told that government has attached high priority to the sector and additional resources have been provided for R&D activities but more support is required for exploiting the potential of the sector.
He asked the private sector to play an active role to face the challenges and resolve emerging issues. Imam was of the view that in past the extension service has mainly concentrated for cereals and cash crops for food security and economic reasons and there was hardly any extension service for horticulture crops and the technologies developed/introduced by the research institutions remained in their bookshelves and did not reach to the end users but now they need to come forward and transform the sector with their ideas.
Earlier, delivering the keynote address, VC UAF, Professor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said that this country was producing 7.5 mounds per acre in 1961 and in early 70s there was hardly a single poultry in the country. In early 80s Pakistan never saw 3 million bales of cotton, the oranges and bananas were to be seen during seasons but today wheat production is over 50 mounds and poultry sector witnessed the tremendous development, and fruits are everywhere in the country due to spreading the agricultural knowledge and awareness at grass root level. Dr Khan said that from farm gate to market and from market to every dinning table 25-40% food used to be contaminated or become useless due to poor arrangements in handling, harvesting, storage, grading, packaging, and transportation which needed to be curbed with scientific means.
He urged the planners to encourage and provide all means to establish certified/quality nursery with high yield potential plants with resistance against virus and other diseases. Dr Khan told that an average citrus plant used to be uprooted after 10 years before reaching to the full blooming age due to various diseases but he had seen the orange orchards of more than 60 years old trees. He emphasised the need to fill the gap between the existing yields per acre and the tremendous potential that the country has due to climatic and soil diversity.
Dr Khan maintained that the fruit crops require special attention for nursery raising, training, irrigation, nutrition and pest & disease management at specific times as they are highly perishable and require special attention for harvesting, post harvest and marketing. He apprised the participants that the current export of fruits from Pakistan stands at over Rs 12 billion, which could be increased 2-3 times if appropriate strategy is adopted.
Presenting the opening remarks Dr M. Jameel Khan Advisor Agriculture Planning in Planning Commission of Pakistan highlighted various challenges being faced by the growers and exporters. He said that growers were facing problems in getting the certified planning material, improved varieties/hybrids as per market demand, inadequate orchard management and lack of awareness, credit and input availability and quality, inadequate plant protection cover, inadequate research and extension support, advance contracting, lack of awareness for harvest and post harvest management, no premium on quality, defective marketing system and no flow of information, and inadequate processing industry to stabilise prices and utilise surpluses.
During the technical session, some other speakers were Altafur Rehman ORI Sorghadha, Dr Atta Hussain Soomro, Dr Faridullah Wazir, M. Naseem, Dr Hafeez-ur-Rehman, M. Boota Sarwer, Dr Amanullah Malik, Dr Munir Ahmad, Professor Dr Khalid Mustafa, Saifi Chaudhry, M. Bashir, Imdad Nizamani, M. Azam, Saadat Ijaz Qureshi, Dr M. Aslam Gill, Dr M. Jaffar Jaskani, and Dr M. Saeed.