Food requirement: Borlaug institute to be set up in Islamabad

Institute will carry out research on crops to improve productivity.

ISLAMABAD: Following the footsteps of India, Nepal and Bangladesh, Pakistan, too, will have a Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) to promote nutrition, livelihood security and environmental rehabilitation in the country.

Such institutes have been established in India, Nepal and Bangladesh in the legacy of Dr Norman Ernest Borlaug, the father of ‘the Green Revolution’ and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

The objective of BISA is to harness latest technology in agriculture to improve farm productivity and sustainability in order to meet demands of the future food requirement.

A senior officer at Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (Parc) said high level officials of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and Parc authorities held a detailed meeting last week to figure out modalities and initiate infrastructure development work for the BISA office in Pakistan.

In the meeting, the CIMMYT regional representative was briefed in detail about the project. They agreed that the BISA will be established in Islamabad and later its branches will be set up in all the provinces.

Parc has already allotted five acres of land at National Agriculture Research Council (Narc) campus in Islamabad for the institute. The officer said that provinces will be contacted through relevant authorities to provide land for establishment of BISA branches.

Talking about the mandate of the proposed institute, the Parc officer said that the BISA will carry research on wheat and other core crops of the country to meet future challenges. Parc officials also asked the CIMMYT representatives to furnish a need assessment plant to develop a proper structural model to construction a complex.

The CIMMYT regional official representatives will again visit Pakistan in June and decide the final modalities to materialise the project.

Published in The Express Tribune, March  31^st,  2015.

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