MARDAN, Aug 24: Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan has said that the government is taking all steps to provide quality agriculture inputs to farmers for increasing their income and per acre yield.

The minister was addressing a function here after visiting the site of Australian project titled “Adoption of Permanent raised beds for wheat-maize cropping system in NWFP” the other day.

He said the government had introduced advanced agriculture technologies to achieve self-sufficiency in agricultural products.

He said the government was determined to provide best facilities to the farming community, and the initiation of the Pakistan-Australia joint project was a step towards this end.

He told the participants that Pakistan Agriculture Research Council and Agriculture Department, NWFP, were running this programme jointly.

Mr Bosan said agriculture production in the Mardan district was enhanced by 30 per cent after the introduction of new technology. He said this technology would be shifted to other parts of the province and would also be linked with Water Management Programme which was successfully running in all the four provinces.

He said the government had shifted Australian machinery to Mardan with the intention to increase per acre yield of the farmers and had succeeded in achieving the desired results.

Federal Secretary Agriculture Mohammad Ismail Qureshi and Joint Secretary Agricultre Salim Khan Jhagra were also present on the occasion.—APP