The government should encourage and ease the farming community to adopt modern technologies to avoid post-harvest losses and increase agriculture production. Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Abdul Basit said.
The suffering of agriculture is due to numerous multiple reasons, said in a statement, the LCCI president.
He stressed the need for increasing the cultivated area as Pakistan is running well short of per capita food availability.
Almost 43% people are dependent on agriculture still, we are the major producers in the list from countries like China, Egypt when it comes to yield of major 4 crops. He added that poverty owing to this low yield has its contribution in increased import of agriculture products to fulfill the feeding demands increasing the population.
As opposed to Pakistan, China is producing 2X more cotton and wheat per hectare while Egypt grows 3X more three times more rice and sugarcane per hectare, this an eye opener fact for Pakistan.
Yield if agricultural products can be increased by using mechanized farming, highly efficient irrigation systems like drip irrigation, introducing hybrid seed in large scale, and reducing wastage of crops by the introduction of privately owned storage facilities and cold storage facilities.
“Technology of 21 century is biotechnology and Pakistan fully potent to achieve goals of the private sector, scientists, researchers and government will have to work together,” he added.