MULTAN, Feb 20: The Overseas Pakistanis Foundation will set up five agricultural training institutes in the country to impart modern knowledge to the farm labour.

This was announced by Federal Minister For Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis, Abdul Sattar Laleka, here on Thursday while addressing the concluding session of a two-day workshop on agricultural marketing organized by the Federation of Chambers of Agriculture.

The minister said that agriculture sector had absorbed almost 70 per cent of the country’s manpower while 80 per cent of the industrial labour was also attached with the agro-based industries.

He said not even in the country but the Pakistani agricultural labour force was also playing a pivotal role in the economies of some other countries as well. He said about 70,000 Pakistanis were employed with the farm sector in Greece, 45,000 in Saudi Arabia, 25,000 in Spain and Italy.

He said the trained agricultural labour was very much in demand here and abroad. He said 50 per cent of the resources in the farm sector had perished due to the overwhelming number of unskilled labour while the country was also losing an opportunity to capitalise on the demand of skilled farm labour in the foreign lands.

He said the proposed training institutes of agriculture would try to meet the demand for skilled labour here and abroad. He said the institutes would be governed by the federation of chambers of agriculture through the board of governors.