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Hybrid BT cotton technology should be acquired from China, says Pakistan Agricultural Research Council

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Multan, Pakistan
May 14, 2009

Source: Business Recorder via Pakistan Biotechnology Information Center (PABIC)

The Chairman, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Dr Zafar Altaf has said that Chinese economy, specially its agriculture witnessed remarkable changes over the past few decades due to the participation of its people. Addressing a seminar on future of cotton marketing in Kabirwala, he said that farmers should divert their attention towards cultivation of edible oilseeds like Canola, Sun flower, Soyabean etc.

He said PARC recommended that Germ Plasm of Hybrid BT colour cotton and inter specific hybrids need to be acquired from China and production technology of coloured and white cotton should be tested on farmers' field at five sites selected by Chinese experts at large scale.

The agriculture sector is likely to achieve its growth target of 3.3 percent for the current year. The crop sector is projected to surpass the growth target, Dr Zafar said referring to a report of PARC. He all livestock products witnessed an increase in prices and thus the target of 3.2 percent could be achieved adding that the demand for livestock products is growing at a phenomenal pace.

Pakistan is producing about one third of its edible oil requirements and the rest is met through import against billions of rupees each year. Around 187.1 million tones of edible oil at a cost of Rs 109 billion was imported during 2007-08, while oil seeds costing Rs 28 billion were also imported during the same period. Substantial amount of our valued foreign exchange is spent on importing edible oil, which not only brings hardship to the people but also burdens the national economy.

There is a need to find other means and ways to reduce the import of edible oil bill including promotion of sunflower and oilseed cultivation in the country. Dr Zafar said that the government was spending on sunflower research and motivating the farmers' community to make the country self-sufficient in edible oil through increasing the cultivation of this crop.

Around 9,000 acres of land will be brought under sunflower cultivation in Sialkot, Daska, Pasrur and Sambrial tehsils this year. Further, sunflower, a non-traditional oilseed has the potential to bridge the gap that exists between the domestic demand and supply due to its high oil and protein contents, he said.

PARC official said certain marketing and production methods associated with this crop were being adopted to achieve the desired results and at the same time area and production of sunflower was being increased. He said sunflower seeds contain about 42 percent of high quality edible oil and this crop is grown on an area of 2,56,000 hectares in Pakistan with a production of 3,59,000 tons sunflower seed and 1402 kg per hectare yield.

But the production is low as compared to major sunflower growing countries like China, United States and Argentina but our per acre production is better than the developing countries, he said and added, the crop duration is such that it can be sandwiched between two cotton, rice or potato crops.

Therefore, it has a great potential to make the country self sufficient in edible oil. Due to rapid increase in population, the import of edible oil was increasing every year for fulfilling the domestic requirements. Meanwhile, some growers said that small farmers were hesitating to cultivate the sunflower crop because of poor supporting price of their crop and this area also needs immediate attention.

Further, he said, the agriculture has been facing acute irrigation water shortages and the water intensive kharif crops sugarcane and maize fell short of the target and depicted negative growth of 18.5 percent and 7.5 percent in 2008-09.

However, other two major crops, cotton and rice have registered positive growth of 7.3 percent and 13.5 percent, respectively. The combined weight of sugarcane and maize in overall agriculture is 6.2 percent, while that of cotton and rice is 13.0 percent.

The Rabi season started with estimated water shortages of 31.6 percent, however, widespread rainfall during December 2008 to February 2009 in most parts of the country left positive impact on the outlook for the rabi crop. In addition, fertiliser off-take (both Urea and DAP) decreased by almost 6.5 percent during July-March 2008-09 amid weak demand due to higher prices and vague market signals led to shortages.

Disbursement of credit to agriculture sector by commercial and specialised banks has increased by Rs 13.3 billion by 9.6 percent year-on-years to Rs 151.9 billion during nine months (July-March) of the current fiscal year (2008-09) from Rs 138.6 billion of corresponding period of last fiscal year (2007-08), he added.

According to him, A two member Chinese follow up mission headed by Qiquan Zhang, Director General, Agri. Division, Xinjiang Production and Corporation, reached Islamabad called on him and discussed contents of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be implemented in Punjab and Sindh for growing BT Cotton. According to the agreement, initially Chinese would grow BT cotton on 800 acre of farmers' field.

Out of which 400 acre would be used by applying drip irrigation method and 400 by applying sprinkler irrigation method. The PARC would monitor all research activities being carried out through joint venture for production of coloured and white cotton at large scale, he added.

Later, the delegation was taken to agricultural research institutes and cotton growing areas of Sindh and Punjab, where the Chinese experts selected experimental sites and also held meetings with the experts and scientists engaged in research and development activities.

The Chinese experts follow up mission also met with Secretary, Agriculture, Managing Director, Seed Corporation, Cotton Botanist where they gave detailed briefing to the Chinese mission. The mission also visited Sakrand and witnessed wheat seed processing plant, but no proper facility for cotton was available, as the cotton processing plant was out of order for cotton ginning.

The scientists working at Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI) Multan apprised the mission that they started working on coloured cotton in 1993 and developed colour shades in cotton gene pool, he said. Dong Li Xia also gave presentation to scientists at the CCRI and Ali Akbar Group about the status of coloured cotton in China.

Director AZRI, Bahawalpur, Dr Rukhsana briefed the Chinese mission about research activities of the institute particularly Biofuel plants development in Pakistan. In Faisalabad, the mission held a meeting with the Additional Secretary Agriculture, Natiq Hussain, Chief PND and Dr Noor-ul-Islam, Director Cotton AARI, where Chairman, PARC, Dr Zafar Altaf was also present.

They discussed MoU signed by Punjab Government with China on Agriculture. Dong Li Xia in his briefing gave a detailed presentation on the subject and Salim Qureshi spoke on Status of Cotton in Pakistan. Former Director, CCRI Multan, Dr Zahoor Ahmed, Ehsan Akhtar, Akbar Ali, Khawar Ali, Faisal Imam, Mian Khalid Khokhar, Mehmood Ahmed and Mehboob Ahmed also spoke to the seminar.

 

 

 

 

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