Speakers stress enhancing crop yield

Investment in R&D can address food security issues in South Asia.

ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a workshop on Tuesday stressed the need for enhancing per acre crop productivity at par with the developed world by increasing investment in agriculture research to address the food security issues in South Asia.

A week long workshop on ‘Food Security Situation in South Asia: Problems and Prospects’ was being organised by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Human Resource Development Centre (HRDC) aimed at bringing together researchers and practitioners and facilitate a dialogue on key issues of food security situation in the Saarc region.

Addressing the participants, Pakistan Agriculture Research Council Chairman Dr Iftikhar Ahmad said that Pakistan had sufficient food for its domestic consumption and surplus quantity was available in all major crops including wheat, rice and maize. He said that issue of food distribution is required to ensure access to food facility for women and children in the country by developing a proper mechanism.

Speaking on the occasion, HRDC Director Riffat Ayesha said that poverty, hunger, and malnutrition were prevailing in most parts of the world especially in the Saarc region where about 39% of the world’s poor lived and had the highest incidence (43%) of poverty. The SAARC member states account 22% of total population of the world and their agriculture production was on high risk resulting from high variations in weather, she added.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2012.