Staff Reporter Rawalpindi
Federal Minister for Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam said the lack of access to the availability of local, quality and inexpensive seeds to our farmers is one of the major challenges faced by our agriculture sector.
He said this while addressing at the ceremony of Sarsabz Wheat Campaign 2021 for Potohar at Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawal-pindi / (PMAS-AAUR), here on Thursday.
Punjab Agriculture Minister Syed Hussain Ja-hania Gardezi, Vice-Chancellor University of Agri-culture Faisalabad (UAF), PMAS-AAUR Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman, Punjab Agri-culture Secretary Asad Rehman Gillani, DG Exten-sion Agriculture Research Anjum Ali Butter, faculty members, students or farmers from a different area of Potohar were also present on the occasion.
To tackle the problem of agricultural cost, the federal government has decided to give a subsidy of Rs 16 billion to the farmers, half of which will be given by the provinces and half by the federation, federal minister said.
He applauded the Punjab government, espe-cially the agriculture department and universities due to record wheat production last year and the federal government has given Punjab the highest target of wheat out of all the provinces for the year 2021-22.
In his address, the provincial agriculture minis-ter Hussain Jahania Gardezi termed the strong link-ages of the academy industry as the need of the hour, without agricultural development is impossi-ble.
He said that it is a moment of reflection for us that despite being an agricultural country, Pakistan is forced to import food items to meet its food needs.
of food commodities indicate that we can-not meet the needs of our people in traditional agri-culture that’s why we have to educate and introduce new technologies in our agriculture system, he said.f
