Faisalabad
The Agriculture Department has launched awareness programs for sunflower growers to get bumper crop through better cultivation and use of modern production technology. According to Director Agriculture Chaudhry Abdul Hameed, sunflower is an important and cash crop which will not only meet the domestic food requirements but also play a vital role in mitigating financial sufferings of the growers.
He said that Pakistan was producing only 20% of domestic requirement of edible oil which was insufficient, however, there was a dire need to cultivate sunflower at large scale by using latest technologies. He said the Punjab government had announced to provide a subsidy of Rs 5000 per acre to each sunflower cultivator. He said the best time for sunflower cultivation in Faisalabad was from January 15 to the end of February.
Therefore, the farmers should cultivate sunflower crop on-time because late sowing will not only affect the quantity but also quality of the grains. He said the agriculture department had set a target of more than 96,000 acres for sunflower cultivation in Punjab to produce more than 65,000 tonne yield. At present, he said that Pakistan was producing 34% of the country’s edible oil while 66% edible oil has to be imported from other countries and in this way billions of rupees were being spent annually.
He said that every person in Pakistan consumes 12 to 13 liters of edible oil per annum and this consumption was increasing at the rate of 3% per annum. Therefore, it is need of the hour to cultivate oil crops including sunflowers at maximum area so that self-sufficiency in edible oil could be achieved which will reciprocally save valuable foreign exchange for Pakistan.
Abdul Hameed said that sunflower seeds contain about 40-48% high quality edible oil while seeds of mustard crops contain 32% and cotton seeds 10 to 12% of edible oil. Therefore, promotion of sunflower cultivation is imperative to become self-sufficient in edible oil, he added. He said that oil of sunflower seeds also contains a large amount of unsaturated fatty acids. Sunflower oil contains low content of saturated fatty acids due to which it is considered to highly fit for protection against cardiac diseases. This oil also provides vitamins A, B and K, which are essential for human health, he added.—APP
