Pakistan contributes 0.5% to banana market

Chinese technology can help in growing high yield fruit

BEIJING:

Pakistan’s contribution to the international banana market is less than 0.5% while China’s contribution is around 4.5%, says Nosherwan Haider, CEO of the Sprouts Biotech Laboratories.

“We are far behind. I think China and Pakistan can cooperate through collaborative research. We can progress and get benefit from each other,” added Haider in an interview with China Economic Net (CEN).

The lack of high-quality seeds, advanced cultivation technology and logistic facility remains a large obstacle in boosting banana production and exports in Pakistan, for which Pakistani researchers and farmers are looking forward to getting Chinese support.

“The main problem we have here is the choice of good seeds. We lack good seeds. Nowadays, we have a kind of seed known as the tissue culture seed, imported from China,” said Imran Shah, a farmer from NQ Farms.

“The production of tissue culture banana is three times higher than that of our conventional banana. Conventional bananas harvest in 16 to 18 months while tissue culture bananas fruit in the seventh month. Tissue culture bananas are disease-free and harsh weather tolerant. The production of plants produced in our labs last throughout the year. People get a lot of benefit from it,” said the Sprouts Biotech Laboratories CEO.

THE ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON THE CHINA ECONOMIC NET