Dr. Ali stressed the significance of boosting agricultural exports because organic products are more valuable on global markets.
Dr. Ghulam Muhammad Ali, the chairman of the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC), announced on Thursday that a facility to support organic agriculture would be built at the National Agriculture Research Center in addition to establishing a local certification body that would be recognised internationally.
Speaking at the Organic Agriculture Policy Review Workshop, sponsored by the Laudes Foundation and hosted by CABI Regional Bioscience Centre Pakistan, Dr. Ali stressed the significance of boosting agricultural exports because organic products are more valuable on global markets. He also announced the establishment of an organic agriculture support facility.
The workshop’s main goal was to bring all the stakeholders in organic agriculture together under the umbrella of the programme “Building the Policy Ecosystem for Organic Production Landscape in Pakistan” in order to create a national organic agriculture policy.
In his remarks, Chairman PARC thanked the event’s organisers and discussed the necessity and value of organic agriculture for Pakistan. Many types of agriculture are already carried out organically in Pakistan, according to Chairman PARC, but it still requires technical direction from the appropriate authorities.
He emphasised the potential for organic farming in Balochistan and the importance of taking action to support and encourage it there in order to foster social and economic progress. The Ministry of National Food Security and Research’s advisor, Dr. Akmal Siddique, stressed the need for time-bound, specific, measurable, and achievable policy solutions.
According to him, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research will issue a directive to institutions directing them to set up a division where research scientists will create individual farms for the cultivation of their crops in accordance with organic principles.
The Balochistan Agriculture Department was praised for pioneering organic agriculture in Pakistan by Dr. Yousaf Zafar, a former chairman of PARC and senior advisor/consultant to CABI. Pakistan is now on the map for certified organic cotton as of 2019.