Islamabad, October 27, 2022 (PPI-OT): President Dr Arif Alvi has called for adapting modern and “climate-smart” farming techniques, besides conserving and effectively managing the country’s water resources, adding that innovative farming methods were essential for increasing the per-acre yield and agricultural productivity of the country and would also help fulfill Pakistan’s food requirements. The President expressed these views while addressing the inauguration ceremony of an Agri-Innovation Center “Natural Farms”, in Faisalabad, today.
Natural Farms is a private-run commercial innovative agricultural centre based in Faisalabad, which utilizes technology to control the climate inside its farms, besides using drip and spray irrigation systems as well as “fertigation”, a combination of irrigation and providing controlled fertilizer to fulfill the plants’ micronutrient requirements. During his visit, the President also inaugurated the Agri-Innovation Center and planted a sapling within the farm’s premises. Addressing the ceremony, the President urged the need to establish linkages among farmers, innovators, academia, agri-tech companies, governments and banking sectors for bridging the knowledge gap between agriculturists and innovators and promoting modern technology-based farming methods in the country.
This, he said, would help boost the productivity of Pakistan’s agricultural sector besides helping promote Artificial Intelligence and IT-based farming in Pakistan at a mass level. The President said that innovative farming techniques, coupled with intelligent business practices and market regulation, could help eliminate food shortages, ensure food availability, besides helping keep the prices of essential food items in check in Pakistan. He said that provincial governments should encourage the farmers to replicate the innovative farming models in the rest of the country and involve the banking sector to provide agricultural loans as the return on equity in modern farms was excellent.
The President highlighted that if Pakistan adapted modern technology-based farming techniques, including vertical farming, hydroponics and climate controlled farming, and managed to spread it to the rest of the country, Pakistan would be able to meet its own food requirements as well as export food items to rest of world within a short span of time. He said that one unit of vertical farming could be established on one Kanal of land with an estimated initial investment of Rs. 2.5 million, which was quite affordable and made good business model and economic sense as return on investment was higher.
The President said this was an era of ideas, knowledge and intellect, adding that the private sector, government, academia and banking sectors should join hands to create an information database to bring prosperity in farming through the application of technology. He called for increasing the number of modern and innovative farms in the country by setting up doable Key Performance Indicators for ensuring fast track implementation and adoption of modern commercial farming.
The President said that Pakistan was a source of inspiration for rest of the world in agriculture productivity and innovation but now this status had been reversed as we were dependent upon agriculture technology from developed world to increase our productivity. He said that Pakistan had been adversely affected by the impacts of climate change, adding that initiatives like the Billion Tree Tsunami, in addition to other projects, were needed to enhance the country’s forest cover.
He said that Pakistan needed to adapt drip and spray irrigation techniques in the farming sector, in addition to better management and conservation of water, adding that even water-abundant countries were forced to adapt water conservation methods due to global warming and climate change. He said that Netherlands, a country 19 times smaller than Pakistan, had become the second biggest exporter of agricultural products in the world through research and adoption of innovative and technology-based farming.
The President further said that 158-million-acre feet water was made available to Pakistan by nature, adding that this precious water could be preserved by replacing flood-irrigation with drip and spray irrigation, building water storages, and recharging the aquifers by conserving rainwater. Chairman Natural Farms, Mr Waseem Afzal also addressed the ceremony. He said that Pakistan needed to adapt modern technology-based and innovative farming techniques to enhance the country’s agricultural productivity.
This, he added, would help Pakistan once again become the food-basket of the world. He further said that climate smart farming could help Pakistan fulfill its food requirements, besides helping achieve food security. Punjab’s Minister for Agriculture, Mr Hussain Jahania Gardezi, while addressing the ceremony, highlighted the need to invest in high-tech farms and share the knowledge and information with farmers to help in the propagation of technology-based agricultural farms in the country.
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