March 19, 2002	Tuesday	Muharram 4, 1423

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FAISALABAD, March 18: Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Khair Muhammad Junejo urged soil scientists on Monday to evolve a comprehensive strategy to boost farm production and suggest ways to cope with persistent water shortages in the country.

The minister was addressing the participants of the inaugural ceremony of the three-day International Congress on Soil Management Under Stress Environment held here at the Nuclear Institute for Agricultural and Biology under the aegis of Soil Science Society of Pakistan.

The minister said Pakistan was one of the fortunate countries of the world in terms of an adequate land resource having about 21 million hectare of arable land, about 17 million hectares of it under irrigated cropping.

He said that the prime irrigated land was in the Indus Basin where a gigantic agricultural production system had been developed on 16 million hectare. The resource was, however, faced now with the threat of degradation on account of mismanagement which must be tackled timely by adopting a viable strategy based on a knowledge of its potential.

He further stressed the need to accord top priority to soil problems, saying it was key to preserving the livelihood of 60 to 70 percent of the country’s population.

The minister counted soil erosion, salination, water-logging, deterioration, contamination, fertility depletion, sedimentation and surface scraping among various categories of soil degradation.

Speaking of the twin menace of salinity and water logging, which is a severe problem in both Sindh and the Punjab, he said, the productivity of soil in some of the affected areas had deteriorated to the extent that the farmers had been forced to abandon the land. This, he said, had led to greater rural poverty. Many engineering solutions, he said had been proposed in the past but none had proved sustainable.

He urged the soil scientists to explain to the farmers the benefits of farm technologies and demonstrate their use. He asked the Soil Science Society to provide leadership and vision in solving some of the core problems and setting the country on the path to sustainable and profitable agriculture.

Earlier, Dr Mohsin Iqbal, the NIAB director and Soil Science Society of Pakistan president, lamented that the country’s natural resources were under increasing pressure, threatening food security and sustainable development. He mentioned several soil stress factors affecting agricultural productivity in Pakistan. They included water shortage, soil salinity and erosion, forest loss and urbanization.

Shields were presented to 13 soil scientists for their contribution to the discipline.