ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) launched on Wednesday a plan of soybean seed multiplication and promotion in the coming autumn season.

During the season, the soybean crop will be cultivated on 1,000 acres at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) and farmers’ fields through contract farming.

In addition to NARC in Islamabad, the seed multiplication plan will spread over to Sargodha, Chakwal, Attock and northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in collaboration with other national partners.

Secretary National Food Security and Research Seerat Asghar presided over a meeting at PARC to review the soybean promotion plan, attended by all stakeholders.

“Soybean has tremendous scope in our farming system. We need to develop new varieties of short duration and suitable for different ecologies of Pakistan. Potohar, Fata and AJK have the scope of soybean production,” Asghar said.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2015

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