FAISALABAD, Dec 2: The previous government ignored agriculture and only focused on telecommunications, auto mobile and consumer financing that has raised Pakistan’s import bills to manifold landing the agriculture zone in an outlandish situation.

University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice-Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmad said this while talking to members of the National Institute of Management delegation of 4th mid-career management course (MCMC) on Tuesday.

He said the prevailing food crisis of the country was a purely management issue rather than less production or inefficiency of the agriculture sector.

About a comparative production status of Indian and Pakistani Punjab, he said production of Pakistani Punjab was not less than Indian Punjab. However, comparing the over all country production, he said Pakistan had to produce more as 50 per cent of its cultivable land was arid and 40 per cent of its produces become useless due to management issues. On the contrary, he said, all the Indian agriculture land was canal irrigated.

He said cotton was cash crop and a significant source of foreign exchange earnings. It accounts for 7.5 per cent of the value added in agriculture and about 1.6 per cent to GDP but the production graph indicated it was on decline due to many reasons.

He said the government should adopt new techniques as India and China had taken a visible leap by cultivating BT cotton.

The VC said country witnessed a green revolution in early sixties but a few people knew about the 20 years of scientific struggle for the revolution. He said that another green revolution would stem from biotechnology, precision agriculture and water economy.

He said scientists of the UAF had won more than 350 research projects by competing other incumbents globally and right now more than 500 PhD scholars were enrolled on campus.

Dr Iqrar urged the delegation to review the agriculture policy considering global marketing trends and climatic changes taking place in the region. Delegation members also visited various labs and farms of the university.