Our Correspondent
Islamabad
Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research, Syed Fakhar Imam, Thursday, said that Pakistan’s future will be driven through agriculture.
During meeting with Yao Jing, Ambassador of China, Minister for National Food Security and Research, Syed Fakhar Imam mentioned that Prime Minister Imran Khan is very much interested in revival of agriculture. He said to Chinese Ambassador that both countries need to revisit the contours of agricultural sector. He said that technical experts from two sides should directly interact with each other to come up with concrete projects for agricultural research.
Federal Minister said that Pakistan is facing problem of low yield. So there must be exchange of germplasm as an area of cooperation which will provide an opportunity to develop high yielding varieties for cotton, fruit, hybrid rice and wheat by our research centers.
Syed Fakhar Imam said that China is one of largest markets in the world for export of meat & meat products. Pakistan has no access to Chinese market due to the issue of FMD. So collaboration can be done in this regard. He mentioned that Balochistan is excelling in producing organic cotton. It was decided that China will help in installing phytosanitary system for increasing fruit export. It was also decided that China will help in building vocational and technical agriculture institutions for training farmers and other people. He added that now Plant Breeders Act and Plant Seed Act will give a window for branding our products.
Chinese Ambassador also showed interest in mutual cooperation in fishery at Gwadar. China–Pakistan JWG on Agricultural Cooperation was established in pursuance of the MoU (signed on 02.11.2018) and Framework Agreement (signed on 26.05.2019). First Meeting of JWG was held on November 01, 2019 in Islamabad. Chinese side has provided in-kind donation of locust control equipment to the tune of around Rs. 4.94 mil
