LAHORE, Feb 20: The three-day 34th Pakistan Saarc countries science conference on ‘sustainable pest management in modern agriculture’ opened at the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) here on Monday.

A large number of delegates from Saarc countries are attending the conference. They will also attend a symposium on ‘ocular degenerative diseases’ on Wednesday at the university.

Inaugurating the moot, Punjab food minister Chaudhry Iqbal said Pakistan was a developing country and needed scientists and experts to meet its requirements.

He said agriculture contributed to about 26 per cent of the GDP and provided employment to half of the country’s labour force. Pests and insects had been causing heavy losses to the food and cash crops of Pakistan like many countries of the world. Pakistan had been taking adequate measures to control the pest diseases to minimise the loss to crops, he added.

Prime Minister’s former special assistant Sultan Ali Chaudhry said in his keynote address that crops worth Rs6.5 billion were destroyed annually by pests and insects which was a colossal damage to the national farm production.

He said pests destroyed about one-thirds of the world food crops during growth, harvesting and storage. In developing countries crop losses were even higher as according to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) the pests could destroy as much as 50 per cent of the cotton production in developing countries without proper plant protection measures.

The FAO had estimated that the world was losing as much as 33 million tons of food grains due to the damage caused by insects, fungi, mites, etc., in storage. It amounted to per capita daily loss of about 1.3 ounce of food, he added.

He said as a special assistant to Z. A. Bhutto about 30 years ago he had apprised him that the pest problem was so gigantic that only government efforts and funds could not cope with the situation and there was need for involving private sector. Consequently the pesticide business was denationalised while other industries were being nationalised in those days. It ushered in a new era for the development of pesticides in the country. It boosted the pesticides consumption from about 5,000 tons worth Rs320 million in 1976 to about 34,000 tons worth Rs6,303 million in 2005. He regretted that no headway was made in manufacturing pesticides in the country and most of the requirement was met through imports.

He emphasised the need for accelerating research and technical training and said traditional approach to pest problems should be changed.

In his welcome address, UVAS vice-chancellor Dr Manzoor Ahmad discussed the progress of his institute established in 2000 by upgrading the former College of Veterinary Sciences.

He said the government had allocated 811 acres land for the new campus of the university at Bhuniky near Pattoki where three blocks would be constructed.

He said without the cooperation of the government the dream of establishing the university on proper scientific lines would have never been realised.

Another development project relating to WTO Quality Assurance Laboratories had been sanctioned, he added.

Pakistan Association for the Advancement of Science president Dr Salim Chaudhry said in order to maximise food production, it was necessary to protect crops from harmful species of plants and herbivores. This could be done with conventional chemicals or biological weapons or by using integrated approach. Integrated pest control was the foundation of integrated pest management programme (IMP) that took a comprehensive and multi disciplinary approach to solving pest problems. The programme emphasised management rather than eradication. IMP was a major component of sustainable agriculture, a holistic approach to modern farming.

Two technical sessions were held after the inaugural session where delegates from various SAARC countries presented their papers highlighting various pest control programmes of their respective countries. Two more technical sessions will be held on Tuesday and two on Wednesday. The concluding session will be presided over by Punjab Agriculture Minister Arshad Lodhi.