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The business community of the southern Punjab has urged upon the government to form agriculture policy with the consent of farmers, peasants and small land holders, saying that serious food security could take place in near future because of the rising population and scarcity of water.
. . . . “If we stayed where we are today in terms of cropped area and yield per hectare, we will have 30 percent less food available per capita in next two decades.”
. . . President of Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) Fareed Mughis Sheikh said that though Pakistan’s almost 43 percent labour force is dependent upon agriculture, the yield gap in the four major crops of Pakistan is three times from the best producers in the world such as China and Egypt.
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Fareed said that 21st century belongs to biotechnology and Pakistan has tremendous potential to emerge as biotechnology leader but to achieve the goal private sector, scientists, researchers and the government would have to work hand-in-hand. He said that Pakistan’s agriculture sector was losing heavily due to insufficient utilisation of biotechnology as the magic progress of agriculture sector is only due to genetically modified crops. He said that agriculture sector in Pakistan has a huge potential. . .But it has always faced two major problems: first, productions per acre are lower than many countries. Secondly, around 40 percent of production is wasted in the form of post-harvest losses due to insufficient utilisation of biotechnology.
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