Ijaz Kakakhel Islamabad
Minister for Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam on Tuesday informed the National Assembly that the government was making efforts to make Pakistan a modern agriculture country in the region.
Responding to a calling attention notice, the Minister for Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam said that various initiatives are being taken to bolster the agriculture sector and to put the country on the path of development and prosperity.
The Minister said that the country has four bumper crops this year. He, however, said that Punjab and Sindh could not achieve their set target of cotton crop.
He said the record production consists of 27.5 million tons wheat, 8.4 million tons rice, and 81 million tons sugarcane production achieved during last year.
The reduction in cotton production was due to non-availability of cotton related technology.
The main reason was that the government was unable to im-plement intellectual property rights in the past otherwise today technology would help Pakistan to achieve higher cotton growth.
The minister claimed that the government was properly focusing increase in cotton production in the country.
State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan has said the government has started replacing pollen allergy related trees in fed-eral capital of Pakistan with local native trees.
Responding to a calling attention notice in the National Assembly on Tuesday, the minister said various tree plantation drives have been completed in the capital.
He said that only paper mulberry trees and some other species cause some kind of allergies that is why the government is pursuing a policy of remov-ing one of such tree and planting ten trees in their place.
He said over three hundred thousand trees have been planted since Pakistan Tehreek Insaf came into power and now a target of planting 3,50,000 plants in the current monsoon season.
Pollen allergy was an old issue in ICT and the gov-ernment has committed to resolve the issue once for all.
The cutting of mulberry trees across the ICT has started and at the same time other native trees were be promoted, the minister maintained.
The step was taken to control the spread of pollen allergy, adding that all Mulberry trees would be removed from ICT.
