Sindh to have banana tissue culture lab soon

HYDERABAD: Sindh Enterprise Development Fund (SEDF) of Sindh Investment Board plans to establish a banana tissue culture laboratory in Karachi under its agriculture enterprise opportunities.

In this regard a high level seminar of progressive growers, industrialists and scientists, especially focusing on banana farmers was held on Monday at the Sindh Agriculture University (SAU) Tamdojam.

It was jointly organised by SDFE, Biotechnology Institute of Pakistan (BTIP) and SAU.

The farmers, scientists, academia and industrialists were urged to strengthen collaboration for technology transfer at grassroots level to benefit the national economy.

The participants discussed the possibility to understand how the laboratory could work for banana production, processing and marketing locally and abroad.

Sardar Yasir of Sindh Enterprise Development Fund  said the government initiated a new project to encourage investment in the agriculture sector, both for on-farm and off-farm activities with a view to facilitate efficient production of banana, processing and marketing.

He said banana share in export was lesser as compared to other commodities, despite the fact it had great potential.

He said they have success stories in livestock, and other crops, like chilli, date, rice etc. Now they were working to promote banana.

Yasir said the laboratory would supply banana tissue culture to growers, adding it was a major opportunity; otherwise, growers themselves could not do this. It would have safe, disease-free variety plants.

Yasir said the government intends to import this lab from Australia and develop it here for farmers on a commercial basis.

"We are talking with growers to get their suggestions on which varieties must be produced and exported," he said.

He asked the  Sindh Agriculture University to seek research proposals, so the government could finance it.

Waqas Khatri, Executive Director, Biotechnology Institute of Pakistan (BTIP), said after lab development there would be an auditorium, where banana farmers would be invited to discuss and share updates time to time to achieve the targets.

He also demonstrated how to develop experimental demo plots of banana varieties near the laboratory. He said these kinds of laboratories were producing tissue culture in other countries and should be followed to promote technology transfer.

He claimed that only three months were needed to make the lab fully operational.

He also showed the varieties of bananas being produced in the world, like Grand Naine (G9) and Mysore.

Prof Ismail Kumbhar, representing the Sindh Agriculture University said that due to weather variations there was need to introduce climate-smart banana varieties, which resisted the cold and hot weather.

He said presently the heat wave was damaging the leaves of the banana, whereas the frost in winter had also damaged the whole plant, resulting in huge losses.

Khatri suggested educating the farmers and adopting new technologies in banana production and value-addition to overcome the huge gap in grading, and packing of banana at the field level.

Leading banana growers including Syed Raheel Shah, Zulfiqar Rustmani, Hadi Bakhsh Leghari, Niaz Nizamani, and Aslam Pervaiz Umrani spoke on the occasion.

Hadi Leghari, a banana grower, said the ground realities should be considered before establishing the laboratory.

He said they had 14 years of experience in growing bananas, and suggested taking the soil quality and characteristics in view before replicating what the other countries were doing in this field.

He said despite facing temperatures as high as 50 degree Celsius in Sindh, the sensitive banana crop was surviving.

Growers appreciated the idea and said there was an urgent need to establish the lab.

They also said that the soil and climate of Sindh might suite some of the varieties of banana available elsewhere. Growers fear a heat wave could harm the fragile banana plants in many areas and inflict colossal losses on productivity.