|
ARTICLE (July 04 2010):
Agriculture plays a vital role for sustaining economic growth, ensuring food
security and reducing poverty in Pakistan. Government emphasises in
achieving high growth rates in agriculture through technological
innovations, investment and policy reforms.
Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), being the apex body for
National Agricultural Research System in Pakistan has a strategic role to
play in addressing the challenges through scientific research and innovation
for accelerated agricultural growth.
PARC has been instrumental in the development and dissemination of
technologies leading to tripling of yield of major food crops, achieving
food security, reducing rural poverty, increasing farm income and improving
quality of life in rural Pakistan and has the capacity to rise to the
occasion to meet the emergency challenges. PARC has recently undertaken
several initiatives to make its research system more efficient, vibrant and
responsive to the emerging challenges.
Major areas of Council's research include: crops, horticulture and
floriculture, agricultural biotechnology, farm mechanisation, natural
resources, animal sciences, social sciences, agricultural informatics, and
gender mainstreaming.
Major achievements of the Council in animal sciences' sector include up
scaling of livestock reproduction capacity from one to three offsprings per
year which has been achieved through embryo transplant technology. Hydro
pericardium vaccine production technology for poultry has been transferred
to private sector with a success rate of 95%.
Losses prior to the introduction of this vaccine were estimated at 75 to 80
percent. Annual financial savings during the past 10 years were
approximately Rs 30 billion, due to this vaccine. PARC has played the major
role in the diagnosis, and prevention of bird flu in Pakistan. Through the
introduction of balanced concentrate feeds, milk and meat production has
increased and production cost reduced.
PARC has assisted in developing more than 264 improved varieties of wheat,
rice, pulses, maize, sorghum, millet, fodder, cotton, sugarcane, oilseeds
and horticultural crops, through the National Agricultural Research System (NARS).
Improved varieties of wheat, cotton, rice and sugarcane crops coupled with
balanced fertiliser use have resulted in yield increases from 100-170%. Use
of chickpea inoculums on large scale in Bhakkar (Punjab) area increased the
chickpea yield by 45 to 65%.
The Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) epidemics during 1992 - 94 caused serious
havoc. Monetary loss only in 1992 was estimated to be Rs 2 billion. PARC
scientists on the way to manage the crisis have diagnosed and characterised
the virus and formulated the management strategies. Virus-free potato seed
and banana plantlets have been developed by the PARC scientists working at
its various institutes. Another breakthrough was the introduction of
virus-free banana saplings. The Bunchy-top virus had almost eroded banana
plantation in Sindh in mid 1990s. Now, this plantation is being replaced by
PARC produced virus free banana plantlets in Hyderabad, Thatta and Gharo
areas. Hybrid seed production of maize, oilseeds, wheat, rice, cotton and
vegetables is being researched and developed in a big way.
In collaboration with Japan, PARC has established plant genetic resources
facility for collection, conservation and exchange of germplasm of all
plants. In-vitro conservation facility of vegetatively propagated crops is
also available in this institute. PARC has developed grain quality
laboratory equipped with latest facilities. The laboratory is ISO-17025
certified.
In order to minimise the indiscriminate and excessive use of harmful
pesticides, PARC is promoting the concept of biological control of insect
pests through Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programmes for fruits and
vegetables. PARC established bio-control laboratories in five sugar mills
and provided technical assistance to another eight sugar mills to do so.
PARC has given special thrusts on organic wheat and vegetable production
based on EM-compost and humic acid. Biofertilizer and biopesticide plants
have started production at NARC. PARC has indigenized technology for
all-season vegetable production. Work on plants suitable for bio-fuel
production like Salicornia, Jatropha, Arind, Sarkanda, Sukh chan, etc is in
progress.
Under the visionary leadership of Dr Zafar Altaf, Chairman PARC, various new
initiatives like biotechnology, bioprospecting, dairy goats crossbreeding ,
mushroom development, efficient water harvesting, remote sensing, GIS,
mitigation strategies for climate change, biofuel production, biodiversity
conservation, dry rice farming, organic certification, etc are being
researched, perfected, tested, tried and extended.
Very recently, PARC has established three waste-water treatment ponds at
NARC by diverting waste water from offices, residential colonies and Shehzad
Town for agricultural use through bio-redemption. These ponds have potential
to clean 7 lac gallons used water per day which is sufficient to irrigate
550 acre land through high efficiency irrigation system at an interval of 20
days. Feasibility study of used-water treatment facility of Jamshid Colony,
Benezirabad (Nawab Shah) with a capacity of 3-3.5 million gallon/day has
been conducted. Similarly, establishment of PARC/NARC sub-research station
at village Neela, Chakwal for demonstration of biological treatment of
used-water and solid organic matter for integrated farming is also under
consideration.
A campaign has been launched to plant fruit saplings and vegetables to cover
the spaces available along road sides, green belts etc in the urban areas.
An urban agriculture centre is being established at NARC through
public-private partnership. Research work on high density fruit orchards is
also in progress at NARC and at various locations of the country.
Pakistan is a major tea importer. Tea import to the tune of Rs 12 to 14
billion per annum is quite disturbing and a challenge to all concerned in
Pakistan. PARC has been working to enhance indigenous tea production since
1980s. As a result of sustained efforts, the Council has established a big
nursery with 1.5 million tea plants at Shinkiari (Manshera). Tea plantation
has been established on more than 400 acres at farmers' fields.
Farmers and NGOs' workers have been trained in tea cultivation technology.
Green and black tea processing plants of 50 kg/day and 1 ton/day capacity,
respectively have been installed at Shinkiari and private sector is being
encouraged to come forward in a big way to help and increase the area under
tea. An MoU was signed with a local company to promote the indigenous tea
production and make the country self- reliant in tea.
Another remarkable achievement of PARC's research and development has been
the introduction of European honeybees in Pakistan in the 1980s, which made
Pakistan a leading exporter of honey in the region. Now, more than 300,000
bee colonies exist in Pakistan which increased honey production from 4 kg in
1982 to 28 kg per colony per annum in 2009. We also trained around 8000
farmers in modern beekeeping.
Agricultural and Biological Engineering Institute (ABEI) formally called
Farm Machinery Institute has designed, developed and modified variety of
farm mechanisation technologies and transferred these to about 30 private
sector engineering firms/companies for commercial production. The machines
developed by PARC include: reaper-windrowers, groundnut-diggers,
paddy-threshers and sunflower-threshers.
A rice transplanter has been designed, developed and introduced by PARC to
suit the local socio-economic and agro-ecological conditions. It has given
satisfactory performance in rice fields of Punjab and Sindh. It is being
manufactured by Heavy Mechanical Complex (HMC), Taxila on commercial scale.
Tractor mounted reaper-windrower, wheat drill, wheat straw
chopper-cum-blower and mobile seed processing units have also been recently
developed and introduced. Realising the importance of straw, ABEI has
developed wheat and rice clipper-cum-blower, facilitating the farmers to
save the uncut and un-chopped wheat straw after combine harvesting of these
crops.
ABEI has also introduced phosphate band placement fertiliser drill, which
saves 50% fertiliser. Recently ABEI is working on Olive oil extraction plant
and Mango harvesting and pre-cooling unit. Development of milking machine
for water buffaloes and indigenization of milking machine for cows is also
in progress.
Covering diverse socio-economic aspects of agricultural research and a wide
variety of production technology packages developed by PARC research
scientists, the Social Sciences discipline takes care of agri-economics,
agribusiness, socio-economics, biometrics, gender development and WTO
opportunities and challenges for Pakistan's agriculture. A variety of
surveys and studies are conducted every year to gauge the suitability and
profitability of various agricultural technologies.
As a result, PARC has more than 100 off-the-shelf available technologies for
immediate transfer to farmers through various mass media and technology
transfer/extension channels. The new management has desired that the new
technologies will be demonstrated at farmers' fields in more aggressive
manner so that the technologies developed at PARC research stations
disseminate fairly rapidly.
PARC has already established a network of Technology Transfer Institutes (TTIs)
at Faisalabad, Tandojam, Peshawar, Quetta, Gilgit and Muzaffarabad for
efficient transfer of developed technologies and generated knowledge. PARC
management realises that the process of technology transfer will be
successful if it is done through close collaboration with the provincial
extension departments. PARC has imparted training to about 15000 people
(farmers, extensionists, junior scientists, technicians) through 750
organised training courses, published booklets/brochures (300), audios (160)
and videos (300) programmes, exhibitions (60), seminars/workshops (70). More
than 16,000 farmers benefited by PARC helpline.
In this age of information technology, PARC also inaugurated its own web
site in August 2000. It contains more than 500 pages having more than
160,000 hits by visitors from over 50 countries. The web site has both
English and Urdu Sections to cater the information needs of scientists,
researchers, policy makers, planners, students as well as farmers. The site
contains 25 English and more than 100 Urdu commodity papers. PARC has
maintained a National Library for Agricultural Sciences at NARC with more
than 25,000 books/documents and about 1,100 scientific journals.
In line with the new challenges in the WTO regime PARC has established a WTO-
Food and Agriculture Related Matters (WTO-FARM) Cell in 2000. The Cell has
conducted more than 50 workshops and seminars in close collaboration with
key stakeholders across the country to create awareness of WTO regime for
food and agriculture. It has also conducted research in this area and
published 10 policy research papers, a training manual and a bulletin for
farmers. Council has recently started teaching at M.Phil and Ph.D level.
PARC has registered a company, PARC Agrotech Trading Company (PATCO), to
patent and commercialise the technologies, services and products developed
and provided by the agricultural scientists. It has already started
functioning. A gender mainstreaming program has been initiated at PARC and
transfer of technology to the recipient females is taken through NGOs, CBOs
and FOS in the country.
PARC is doing research and development work on compact animals ie Azakhali
buffalo and Achai cattle; as well as on developing local chicken breed which
may give good production under the prevailing conditions. It is also working
for the fisheries development.
For the development of rangelands and forestry, a project on the collection
of standard and quality seeds of various grasses, bushes, shrubs, plants etc
is also underway. Work on construction of environmentally controlled food
stores is being started soon.
Herbal medicines and their propagation is another area under active research
and development. Extraction of essential oils as a value addition is another
initiative, whereas mushroom production on commercial scale is underway.
(The writer is Dr Iftikhar Ahmad, Director General, NARC, Dr Imdad H. Mirza,
Dr Javed Iqbal, PRMC, NARC, Sardar Ghulam Mustafa, Director PR & Protocol,
PARC)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2010
|
