HYDERABAD, May 19: District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil has said that the district government will arrange at least 100 seminars in a year in villages of the rural taluka.

He said that the district government would hire the services of students of the Sindh Agriculture University for transferring agricultural technology and expertise to farmers.

He was speaking at a seminar on “Cotton Production Technology” here the other day.

The seminar was organised by the Technology Transfer Institute in collaboration with the Agriculture Linkages Programme (ALP) Project Component Directorate General Agriculture Research in Tandojam.

The nazim said that though the scientists had rendered excellent services in evolving new high yield, drought and disease-resistant varieties of crops with scientific methods of cultivation to meet the present and future challenges of rapidly growing population of the country.

He said that some organisations were active in their offices and high forums but were a total failure in the field.

The nazim said that the institutes and scientists had provided food security to the country which was very essential like border security.

He said that it was unfortunate that Pakistan was at number four in cotton-producing countries but was at 13th in the list of high yield countries of the world.

Dr Waqar Malik of the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council said that the organisation had played leading role in promoting agriculture through research in the country.

He said that agricultural-research at hilly, arid and coastal zones were also included in council programmes.

He said that agricultural land had good potential and strength to get crops at the maximum level as we had utilized its potential only up to 30 to 40 per cent.

He said that at present the PARC was utilising Rs1.3 billion endowment fund for research and had submitted summary for grant of Rs5 billion for the promotion of the agriculture sector.

The director-general of the Sindh agriculture research, Mr Haji Khan Keerio, said that cotton was indigenous to Sindh and it was being cultivated by Sindhi farmers since Mohin-Jo-Daro civilisation.

He said that cotton was a major cash crop of the region even today and provided livelihood to majority of the people in Sindh.

He said that the government was paying full attention towards promotion of agricultural-production through the Sindh agriculture department and its components.

Mr Keerio said that ten institutions had been set up and 20 new organisations with six research stations, nine research sub-stations, one repair and maintenance unit and one information technology centre were in the pipeline to improve high yield varieties, develop production and protection technologies, produce certified seed, provide soil, water fertilizer testing facilities and to disseminate production technology to growers.

He said that the organization having funding share of only 22.69 per cent for operational activities had performed the best in the development of research activities.

He said that the purpose of the seminar was to make the farmers of Sindh and stakeholders aware of the latest agricultural technologies to get more production from less inputs.

He said that awareness about drought and disease resisting varieties was the need of the hour to meet present and future challenges.

Dr Ali Mohammad Khushik, Ghulam Mustafa Chandio, Dr Abdul Sattar, Dr Waris Sanjrani, Dr Mureed Kalhoro, Dr Mazhar Naqvi, Agha Zafarullah, progressive grower Syed Nadim Shah and Sindh Abadgar Board president Abdul Majeed Nizamani also spoke on the occasion.