100 acres of pilot Chilli project under Pak-China alliance completed

A pilot Chilli farm project under the Pakistan China Condiments Industry Alliance (PCCIA) successfully completed 100 acres of plantation, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Chairman Asim Saleem Bajwa said on Sunday.

The chilli contract farming project was launched with the joint efforts of the China Embassy in Pakistan, Ministry of National Food Security and Research, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority, China-Pakistan Agricultural Cooperation and Exchange Centre and the agriculture related companies from both countries.

Read Pak-China agri-cooperation and way forward

Taking to his official Twitter handle, the CPEC chairman revealed that the next phase of the project aims to cultivate a total of 3,000 acres.

The project also seeks to modernise the agriculture sector in Pakistan, including new seeds to enhance the crop yield, provide skill development to farm labour as well as processing and its export.

Bajwa also shared a video explaining the agricultural project and the vision with which the PCCIA was formed.

The video disclosed that on January 26, Chinese technicians left from Chengdu (the capital of southwestern China's Sichuan province) for the Indus River Basin to provide all-round technical support for the growth of Chinese chilli peppers.

“Pakistan is an agricultural country with fertile land resources, suitable climate and outstanding demographic dividend,” said one of the technicians seen in the video.

Read more China to give 38 agricultural drones

Speaking about chili farming in Pakistan, Fatima Group Director Marketing Khurram Javed said that the group had dedicated one of their progressive farming lands for the project.

“We are doing experimentation on how it works out in the Pakistani environment … and by results we will see how to scale it up and take it forward,” he maintained.