Agri Scientists Urged To Formulate Recommendations For Achieving Food Security : Syed Hussain Jahania Gardezi

Punjab Agricultural Minister Syed Hussain Jahania Gardezi has urged the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) scientists to formulate viable and tangible recommendations to achieve ultimate objective of food security autarky

FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th Sep, 2022 ) :Punjab Agricultural Minister Syed Hussain Jahania Gardezi has urged the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) scientists to formulate viable and tangible recommendations to achieve ultimate objective of food security autarky.

He was chairing a meeting on agriculture policy at UAF here on Friday. He directed the UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan to constitute a committee for mapping out recommendations on modern lines to make farming an attractive profession and to meet the food demands of the ever-increasing population.

He said that the agriculture sector was in the grip of different challenges including low productivity, traditional way of the farming, soil fertility, market issues, climate changes, water scarcity, seed etc. He said, "We have to provide the secure, safe and healthy food to the people." He said that the cities were expanding. Resultantly, fertile land was being converted into residential colonies and other purpose that was one of the major concerns. He said that improvement of life in rural area was the need of hour with quality education and better medical facilities to minimize the heavy migration towards cities.

He added that the agriculture was the lifeline for the country and efforts were afoot for high value agriculture system. He said that latest irrigation and the water reservoirs were essential in the times when ground water was shrinking. He said that the country was importing edible oil worth $4 billion that was matter of a grave concern for agrarian country. He said that now oil seed area was increasing but wheat area was being converted into oil seed crop.

UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said that until 1960, average annual growth in agriculture was 6 percent while 1960-2000, it was 4.33 percent, while 2000-20, the agriculture was stagnant when average annual growth was 2.7 percent.

Talking about main issues, he said malnutrition, food security, land and water productivity, climate changes, diversification, post harvest losses and market, rural social disparity were hampering the process of the agriculture development.