Agriculture minister for providing interest-free loans to SAU students

The Sindh government has directed the research wing of its agriculture Department to devise a mechanism for providing interest-free loans to the students of the agricultural university in the province.

Chairing a meeting, Sindh Agriculture Minister Muhammad Bux Mahar said that the agriculture department’s research wing would devise a mechanism to provide interest-free loans to the students of the Sindh Agriculture University (SAU), Tando Jam. He added that he would also talk to the chief minister regarding approval of this grant, so that the youth of Sindh could start their own agricultural business.

Mahar said the research wing should introduce new varieties of wheat, rice and sugar cane crops and give seeds of those varieties to the farmers of the province free of charge. He also discussed climate change stating that climate change had become a major problem for agriculture, and an increased budget was required to tackle it.

“We need to work on capacity building and provide more training to agriculture officers,” he said. The agriculture minister directed the research director general (DG) of the agriculture department, Noor Muhammad Baloch, to improve the production and quality of mangoes, dates and cotton so that the farmers of the province could become financially self-dependent.

The research DG informed the meeting that the research wing had introduced 13 varieties of wheat by 2023 and 14 varieties of cotton by 2020, the yield of which was 80 to 85 maunds (approximately 2,960 kg to 3,154 kilogrammes) per acre, while 11 varieties of rice, 11 varieties of sugar cane and seven varieties of various vegetables had been introduced.

Further briefing the meeting, Baloch said the research wing had trained more than 300 women at the Institute of Food and Science Technology to help them grow agricultural products so that they could earn.

The meeting was told that the SAU had been imparting training in agricultural research to around 400 BSc and MSc students. SAU Vice Chancellor Dr Fateh Muhammad Marri, Akbar Ali Zardari and others attended the meeting.