Patron-in-Chief of Mango Growers Co-operative Society Limited and President Mango Growers Association Syed Zahid Hussain Gardezi has criticised the step of CDA to acquire land allotted to National Agriculture Research Council (NARC) to build residential and commercial colonies.
He said that NARC was established more than four decades ago where billions of rupees had been invested by international donors for agriculture research and food security apart from local shares. "The ill-planned and myopic decision by the bureaucracy in CDA and its collaborating interest groups to annul NARC will be detrimental to national interests, which will ruin the agriculture sector in Pakistan," he added.
He further said that dislodging NARC would uproot and damage thousands of germ plasma and gene banks of food staples, horticulture and floriculture research under varied temperatures, imposing irreversible damage to agriculture research. He said that mango growers and all other agri allied sectors condemned this land mafia approach at the cost of irremediable damage to an institution of supreme national significance. He demanded that CDA should disregard acquiring land for housing or commercial use and extend the lease for continued research under NARC.