Pakistan poised to become self-sufficient in corn seed output

LAHORE: Pakistan was poised to become self-sufficient in hybrid corn seeds production because of its enormous indigenous research potential, which should be incentivised for boosting country’s agri-exports and food security, an industry official said on Friday.

“The local seed companies have outperformed their foreign competitors in research and development, producing highest-yielding corn varieties,” claimed Shafiq-Ur-Rehman of Seed Association of Pakistan (SAP), told members of Agriculture Journalists Association (AJA) at Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“The local scientists of national companies associated with SAP have emerged victorious by topping the National Uniform Yield Trials (NUYT) conducted by National Agriculture Research Council (NARC) for the last two years.”

Rehman said these trials were conducted in an impartial manner on ten different sites including lands of public sector research institutions, private, local, and multinational seed companies. “Some of these multinational seed companies are world leaders in maize seed research and development,” he added. Giving details of results of national seed competition announced this month, he said, three corn hybrids namely SB-9663, SB-9617 & SB-9618 developed by Kissan Seed Corporation (KSC) got top three positions in the competition of Yellow Maize Hybrids in Spring 2017.

“The highest production recorded by these locally produced seeds was as high as 10.265 tons per hectare,” he said and added that this record production was more than double the present average corn production in the country.

Similarly, Rehman maintained, CS-240, another hybrid seed variety developed by Petal Seed Company, a national company of Khyber Pakhtonkhaw (KP), produced top yield and got first position in NUYT competition of Yellow and White Maize Hybrids in Spring 2016. “This variety gives an average production of 9.905 tons per hectare.”

The SAP spokesman said these promising results show the local competitive genetic material (germplasm) was sufficiently available in the country to produce high-quality hybrid corn seeds for the spring season.

“Presently, we are importing these hybrid corn seeds from various countries, spending billions of rupees foreign exchange,” he explained.

Rehman, who is the CEO of KSC, elaborated that locally produced hybrid seed was already acclimatised to local conditions and it had the vigor to resist pest and disease attacks.

“Especially, unlike competing foreign seed varieties, locally produced corn hybrids are capable of tolerating high temperatures,” he said adding such features in a local hybrid seeds have brightened the prospects of multiplying the maize production in the country and this seed was available to the farmers at affordable prices.

He proudly said that out of about 200 members, many SAP companies are conducting basic seed research for developing genetic material. “We have been blessed with huge genetic material for breeding hybrid seeds in addition to running processing units and a network of state-of-the-art seed testing labs,” KSC chief said.

Highlighting the importance of corn, Rehman said, like wheat and rice, corn was a staple diet in much of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammue & Kashmir and some other rural belts. “[Bread made from the flour of corn] is a delicacy in rural Pakistan, especially in Punjab and other provinces as we all know it as makai ki roti, which is traditionally eaten with sarson ka saag [a dish made from mustard greens and spices],” he said.

said in addition to human use, 75 per cent of corn was used as fodder and feed for livestock and poultry.

“It includes green fodder, silage, poultry and animal feed,” the industry official said.

He further said as many as 20 percent of the corn produce was used by the food processing industry for manufacturing cereals, refined flour, custards etc, while remaining five percent as seed and other purposes.

“Corn use has vast potential to increase manifold as its production is expected to increase significantly in years to come,” he viewed. Given the latest trends, Rehman opined, use of corn grain and plants can be increased manifold by promoting the use of ethanol and manufacturing of other products and in this connection, the government should announce incentive for these value additions.

Talking about corn or maize crop, he said, it was the 3rd most important and the highest yielding cereal crop of the country after wheat and rice.

“Maize is grown on an area of 1.334 million hectares with annual production of 6.130 million tons, showing average grain yield 4.595 tons/ha,” Rehman said.

He added that Punjab was the major maize producing province contributing 65 percent in area and 85 percent in production.

“Punjab’s average yield stands at a higher side with 6.032 tons per hectare and at national level, corn contributes 2.7 percent to the value-added in agriculture and 0.5 percent to GDP of the country,” he added.