At Least 10-20 % Increase Must In Wheat Production: Jamshed Cheema

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Food Security Jamshed Iqbal Cheema said on Monday that at least 10 to 20 percent increase in wheat production was must to feed the growing population of Pakistan

FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2021 ) :Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Food Security Jamshed Iqbal Cheema said on Monday that at least 10 to 20 percent increase in wheat production was must to feed the growing population of Pakistan.

Addressing the seminar on "Annual Wheat Planning" here at Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI), he said the government was spending huge money on agriculture research to increase the agri productivity, therefore, scientists and researchers should work according to expectations of the government to give a quantum jump to the agriculture production which was imperative to catering to the fast increasing food requirements.

He said that Pakistan had a population of about 225 million and its food requirement was 128 million tonnes.

"We are wheat living nation which consumes 115 kilogram (kg) per capita", he said and added that in Pakistan population increase rate was 2.2 per cent and in this way country's food requirements were increasing at a rate of 600,000 tonnes per annum.

He said that at world level grain production was increasing at the rate of 1.5 per cent while population was increasing at the rate of 1 percent. "In Pakistan, the ratio is totally different as our population was increasing at the rate of 2.

2 per cent while grain production is increasing at the rate of 1.7 per cent which needs a quantum jump of 10-20 per cent if we want to cater to our domestic food requirements easily", he added.

He said that statistics show that Pakistan had witnessed increase of 500,000 tons in grain production during the last three years but this increase was insufficient for future needs of the country. Therefore, scientists should introduce such varieties of wheat, maize, rice and other corps which would be high yielding, disease resistant and water efficient and would have the potential to give maxim production under severe weather conditions.

He said, "Our economy is also agriculture-based, so there is a dire need to increase agri production especially those crops which can be used in value addition including maize, cotton, etc." In this connection, scientists should revisit their planning and deliver their research outcomes to the lowest level of farming community. For this purposes, all modes of communication should be used totransfer technology-based knowledge to ordinary peasant. The government would also facilitate themto achieve the targets, he added.