Agriculture and farm productivity are significantly related to the availability of quality seeds, modern technologies, and pesticides with their responsible use and improved effectiveness. Considering the importance of research in the agricultural sector, the Punjab Agricultural Research Board (PARB) approved 21 projects in the Agricultural, livestock, and Forestry department worth around Rs352.319 million. These research-based projects aim to enhance knowledge, improve technology, and understand the interactions and interdependence between production systems and farming communities.
Under the projects, the government will focus on some major research areas, including the poverty capacity building and adoption of sustainable silkworm rearing practices for poverty reduction in a farming community, development and optimisation of an android smartphone imagery application for real-time nitrogen management in wheat and rice crops, production of high-yielding and the heat-tolerant hybrid seed of chilli, and control of brown plant-hopper in rice through the management and resistant lines development.
To make it proper and effective, the government has designed these projects according to the market and commercial scale demands so that people can get quality agri-commodities at low prices. In addition, the government will also provide crop protection products, modern technologies, and quality seeds tied up with the essential and required technical resources to achieve agricultural sustainability and productivity.
Pakistan, an agricultural country, needs to increase livestock and crop yields, improve farmland productivity, reduce loss due to disease and insects, develop more efficient equipment, and increase overall food quality through research and development in the farming sector. In addition, there is a high need to improve agricultural extension services that can play an important role in the better productivity of agriculture through proper research and development. In addition, for achieving high production targets, the results of agriculture research must reach the farmers at their doorsteps to reduce production costs. Furthermore, the agricultural department needs to promote the real benefits of modern technologies and their responsible use, as well as sound regulatory frameworks supporting long-term sustainable agriculture in the country with proper research and development(R&D).
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