Govt Committed To Promote Value-added Agriculture: Minister

Provincial Minister for Agriculture Syed Hussain Jahanian Gardezi on Thursday said the government was committed to promote value-added agriculture as it was imperative to improve productivity and meet future challenges in agriculture sector

FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Feb, 2021 ) :Provincial Minister for Agriculture Syed Hussain Jahanian Gardezi on Thursday said the government was committed to promote value-added agriculture as it was imperative to improve productivity and meet future challenges in agriculture sector.

Addressing a meeting at Ayub Agriculture Research Institute (AARI) here, he asked the agriculture scientists to motivate the farming community to cultivate oilseed crops, vegetables and floriculture on commercial basis to earn more profit.

He said that dates farming had great potential and the country could earn precious foreign exchange by promoting its cultivation. He urged the agriculture scientists to focus on dates harvesting technology in addition to identifying suitable areas for its cultivation.

He said that targets of agriculture research project should be achieved with in prescribed time limits and its benefits should reach the farming community. He appreciated the standard of research in AARI and directed to further expedite the work on research projects to meet the future challenges.

He said that farmer friendly initiatives of incumbent government should reach the farmers at their doorstep.

He said the government was committed to ensure availability of climate tolerant high yielding seed verities of all major crops including wheat, rice, cotton and sugarcane in order to tackle with climate changes challenges besides maintaining food safety and security.

The minister lauded the efforts of scientists for the betterment of the agricultural sector and hoped that the local agricultural sector would soon start receiving the results as the government was determined to use all the possible resources on research and development of agriculture sector.

On the occasion, Director General Agriculture Research (Punjab) Dr Zafar Iqbal briefly mentioned the agriculture research programs and said that work on agriculture research projects was being completed within the fixed time. He said that agriculture scientists were working on new varieties which would not only help enhance output but would also help to adapt changing climate. He said that scientists were working on a new variety of wheat which would give more production.

Later the minister along with Chief Minister Special Monitoring team visited research areas of wheat, vegetables and oilseeds and issued direction on the spot.