China to develop quality seeds for rice, cotton

Saturday, 06 June 2009 10:52

KARACHI: A team of experts from China has arrived in Sindh to develop quality seeds for rice and cotton, which are likely to increase production, according to officials.

“At present, production of rice and cotton was 40 maunds per acre, but after developing quality seeds, we are expecting production to go up to 80-90 maunds,” said Secretary Agriculture Agha Jan Akhtar.

Talking to The News at his office, Akhtar said the Chinese were visiting Sakrand for developing high quality local variety of rice and cotton.

He recalled that President Asif Ali Zardari during his recent visit to China had taken this initiative as a province of China, which has the same weather as that of Sindh, produces high quality seeds of rice and cotton.

Talking about projects of the Agriculture Department for the next financial year 2009-10, he said the Sindh government plans to construct water reservoirs in water-scarce districts of the province.

These reservoirs, which would be spread over two to four acres, would meet shortage of water, especially for tail-enders.

He said the need for constructing reservoirs was felt because in water-scarce areas like Badin, Thatta and other districts, water was not supplied for several days, resulting in damage to crops.

The government also planned to provide laser leveling equipments and other machines like thrasher to farmers on 50pc subsidy. For this purpose, Rs200 million would be earmarked in the next financial year, Akhtar said. The government intended to provide 1000 tractors to the farmers in the next financial year and Rs0.2 million in subsidy per tractor would be provided.

He said Sindh has fixed a target of 3,000,000 million tons of cotton for the next year 2009-10. Target for sugarcane has been fixed at 14,209,000 million tons and for rice, it is 2,039,000 million tons. Target for wheat would be fixed later.

To a question, Agha Jan Akhtar said foreign investors, especially those belonging to the UAE, had shown their interest in corporate farming, but Board of Revenue would identify the land needed. He opined that foreign investment was needed in packaging and processing.

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