Punjab govt to sell seed packets for Rs50 each

Kitchen gardening programme to promote use of home-grown vegetables.

FAISALABAD: The Punjab Agriculture Department will sell 200,000 packets of different vegetable seeds as part of the Kitchen Gardening Programme during the winter.

The Kitchen Gardening Programme has been launched on the special directives of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for rural and peri-urban areas, Dr Anjum Ali, director general of the Agricultural Extension and Adaptive Research, told The Express Tribune on Wednesday.

He said that the objective of the programme was to promote the use of fresh and home-grown vegetables besides reducing the ever-increasing demand for vegetables in the open market.

He said that each packet, available for Rs50, would contain seeds of 10 different vegetables.

He said that the Punjab government had directed executive district officers (agriculture) to launch a promotional campaign in this regard.

“Training programmes for the Kitchen Gardening Programme will also be conducted with the assistance of NGOs and education and social welfare departments,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 11^th, 2011.