Organic Fruit Orchard Inaugurated To Give Farmers A Recipe To Higher Profits From Smaller Area

Muhammad Irfan Published November 24, 2021 | 06:21 PM

The Organic High Density Fruit Orchard secretary agriculture south Punjab Saqib Ali Ateel inaugurated last Tuesday, measuring only an acre at a government agriculture farm in Bahawalpur, is actually a recipe for small farmers to earn higher profits from smaller landholdings

MULTAN, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Nov, 2021 ) :The Organic High Density Fruit Orchard secretary agriculture south Punjab Saqib Ali Ateel inaugurated last Tuesday, measuring only an acre at a government agriculture farm in Bahawalpur, is actually a recipe for small farmers to earn higher profits from smaller landholdings.

Secretary agriculture said in a statement on Wednesday that new agriculture reforms and techniques were being incorporated in south Punjab's agronomic practices to enable small farmers earn profits ranging from Rs 800,000 to Rs 1 million per acre.

Around 62 per cent of farmers own landholding below three acres and there existed techniques and reforms that can make smaller landholdings highly profitable, he said.

Saqib said that 777 plants of guava, dates, mangoes, citrus, apricot, sweet lemon, lemon, pear, and pomegranate have been planted in the organic high density fruit orchard adding that vegetables including garlic, onion, carrot, cauliflower and turnip were also sown there under inter-cropping technique.

Explaining the technique, he said that remains of crops are buried in soil in the organic high density orchards and animal waste fertilizers is also utilized to improve organic material in soil. Weeds problem is tackled by mechanical and cultural control techniques while bio-pesticides is applied to control diseases and pests.

Such one-acre organic orchards have also been developed at government farms in Rahimyar Khan and Kiror Lal Eisan for farmers to witness them as a model that can generate higher profits at lower cost.

Director Adaptive Research Farm Bahawalpur Dr. Muhammad Aslam, Dr. Salman Ahmad, and other officials were present.