FAISALABAD City News

Climate changes threat to food security: VC

From Our Correspondent

FAISALABAD: University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan Monday said climate changes are affecting agricultural productivity badly and threatening food security in the country.

Chairing a meeting of scientists from Faculty of Social Sciences, UAF, Dr Iqrar said Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) was nothing to do in the recent drop of cotton production, saying that it was due to climate changes the produce of cotton was reduced upto 35 per cent.

The VC said the varsity was mapping out a policy for the government to fight the future challenges of the cotton crop. He also sought the research proposals from the scientists that will be carried out under the USPCAS-AFS.

The VC said the High Efficiency Irrigation was in the high demands and scope across the globe, but unfortunately, our country was far lagging behind in the area and stressed upon the need to promote the technology.

He said that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) should be adopted in order to transfer the agriculture technology at the door step of the farmers. He urged the social scientists to produce the policy paper on the role of print and electronic media in the promotion of agriculture sector that will provide the guideline to improve the situation.

He said lack of awareness and traditional way of farming was hampering the process of getting fruits from the potential.

He said that poverty alleviation was directly linked to the rural development. The VC directed the scientists to work on irrigation pricing, policy options for enhancing the marketing efficiency of potato and onion crops; investigating malnutrition and maternal issues in Thar districts of Pakistan; food and nutritional security analyses of pregnant women to ensure food secure next generations; understanding dynamics and determinants of marketing margins of selected fruits and vegetables in Punjab, and opportunities for improving small-scale milk marketing system through dairy cooperatives concept in the country.

Dr Bashir Ahmad gave the presentation on the two rounds of research grants awarding process by USPCAS-AFS and hoped that the scientists from social sciences faculty would take part in policy research grant. He stressed upon the need to take the all possible measures to address the issue of food security. He said that all-out efforts are being made on the part of the USPCAS to address the problem of the agriculture sector.