LAHORE: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Food Security Jamshed Iqbal Cheema on Sunday said that under ‘Prime Minister’s Agriculture Transformation Plan’ balance would be created among farmer, consumer and industry.
Addressing a press conference, he said that basically agriculture supplied food, feed and fiber and all challenges in this regard would be handled.
He said, “Each individual all over the world consumes 370 kilo grams grains and in Pakistan per capita consumption of grains is 200 kilo grams.”
The SAPM said that almost every year, each person across the world consumed 210 Kg of fruits and vegetables whereas in Pakistan per capita consumption of fruits and vegetables was 63 Kg. In Pakistan per day, each person consumed 100 calories, he added.
Cheema said, “We need 40 million tonnes of feed for our animals and we are producing 13 million tonnes.” He said there was a need to improve nourishment of humans and animals in the country.
He said that before the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government came into power federal government budget for agriculture sector was between Rs1.15 billion to Rs1.60 billion.
He added that this year the incumbent government had allocated Rs53 billion for agriculture sector, adding that this allocation was 40 times more than that of previous year.
He further said that government was focusing on greenifying all possible land besides utilising each drop of surface water for harvesting purpose. He added that all out efforts were being made to save water.
The special assistant said that country had a potential of growing over 1 billion trees of olive and so far 4.1 million olive trees had been planted. He said that grafting of wild olives was underway to make fruit giving trees.
Upscaling of nurseries was also being carried out which would ultimately help plant maximum olive trees, he added.
He further said that total production of rice, wheat and maize was 44 million tonnes and the government wanted to increase this production up to 80 million tonnes.
Cheema said that textile industry was confident that country’s textile export would reach a figure of 50 billion dollars.
He said that this year in Balochistan cotton had been cultivated on area of 350,000 acres of land and he hoped that this year 9 million cotton bales would be produced easily. He added that the government was focusing to cultivate early maturing varieties of rice and wheat so that cultivation could be started from October.
The SAPM said that in coming season more than 7 million tonnes of sugar would be produced.
Cheema said that at present the production of fruit and vegetable was 13 million tonnes and it would be increased up to 70 million tonnes.
Talking about achievements, he said that disease free banana variety had been developed and its production was 10 times more than that of old banana.
Next year 2.5 million tonnes of potato seed would be produced at local level, two high yielding bananas varieties had been developed and at present there were 36 high yielding varieties of olives which were being cultivated, he added.
He further said that five green tea varieties would be launched very soon and suitable area for cultivation of tea had been found in Hazara.
The SAPM said that in Cholistan 6 million acres would be used for cultivation of dates, cotton, mulberry and grapes and added that land would be provided on long term lease.
He further said that Rs 2 billion had been set aside for organic agriculture and added that 1100 fish farms of trout had been launched.
Food processing would be the largest industry in coming years, he added.
Cheema said, “We are not privatising research and extension as both areas are being improved to achieve desired results.”
He said that Rs14 billion had been allocated for animals breed improvement. He added that after three years soybean would not be imported and added that Dera Ismail Khan would be declared as division of pulses and in two years country would be self sufficient for producing pulses.
To a question, he said that this year Rs5 billion had been set aside for development of cluster, adding that plans would be implemented after proper mapping of the areas.
