08 February 2004	Sunday	16 Zilhaj 1424

ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: Low yields of wheat and rice in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) is the focus of a three-day conference of farm scientists that started here on Saturday . About 70 scientists, local and foreign, are participating in the conference.

Hosted by the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), the conference is being attended by scientists from the four countries of IGP, namely, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan which constitute the Regional Steering Committee (RSC) and Regional Technical Coordination Committee (RTCC).

Inaugurating the meeting, the PARC chairman, Dr Badarud Din Soomro, emphasized the importance of rice-wheat system in fulfilment of the food requirements and well-being of the 1.3 billion people inhabiting the IGP.

He was gratified to know that the rice wheat consortium of the IGP in collaboration with the scientists of member-countries and international research institutions was striving to introduce the resource-conserving technology in the region.

Among these zero tillage technology, bed planting of wheat, parachute planting of rice and residue management were already finding favour among the farming community in the South Asian subcontinent, Dr Soomro observed.

With the adoption of these technologies, he added, the productivity of rice-wheat system had not only improved but also helped reduced poverty and environmental degradation.

Their pivotal place in the economies of the IGP countries is evident from the fact that rice and wheat occupy 59.16 and 42.55 million hectares, respectively. The annual grain output of these crops is around 181.35 million tons for rice and 109.75 million tons for wheat.

Another 10 million hectares of rice-wheat is in China. Taking all the five countries together, the RWC covers 28 per cent of the total rice area and 35 per cent of total wheat area in these countries.

The Rice Wheat Consortium was established in 1994 as an Eco- regional Initiative of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

It involves the national agricultural research systems of four-member countries and the international agricultural research centres like the IRRI based in Philippines, CIMMYT of Mexico, IWMI etc.

The system is, however, still constrained by certain serious problems, especially in Pakistan, where most of the irrigated area is controlled by feudal/absentee landlords, and small/middle farmers remain disadvantaged in terms of access to technology and credit.

In Punjab, it has also been observed, 80 per cent of rice area is covered by Basmati rice varieties which mature in November. Farmers remain busy with rice harvesting, threshing and handling of rice-straw until early December.

These factors combined with land preparation lead to delayed sowing of wheat crop for which the optimal period is 1st to 20th November. Planting of wheat is also delayed by a number of other factors including heavy tillage, soil-moisture problems, low availability of animals or tractors for ploughing, prolonged land preparation period and other field operations related to threshing and handling of rice.

Since its inception, the RWC has introduced several innovative resource conserving technologies for wheat and rice crops which also include green manuring, integrated pest management, integrated nutrient management and crop residue management.