PESHAWAR, Jan 25: The Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (Parc) chairman, Dr Badaruddin Soomro, has said that poverty alleviation can effectively be achieved by using nuclear energy in agriculture sector.

Talking to scientists and researchers during a visit to the Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture (Nifa) at Tarnab, near here on Friday, the Parc chairman said that use of nuclear energy in agriculture could play a vital role in alleviating poverty, giving a boost to the national economy.

He said that agriculture research needed to focus on economic growth and to achieve this goal organizing the country’s agriculture sector on scientific lines was necessary.

In this respect, he underlined the steps taken by the researchers of different organizations, including the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s agriculture centres.

“Without developing a sound indigenous base for science and technology, we can neither prosper nor live in peace and security,” said Dr Soomro, according to a press release.

Pointing out that agricultural growth — in terms of many crops — was stagnant and that the scientists had a deep realization about this ‘pathetic’ situation.

On this occasion, he acknowledged the achievements made by Nifa scientists by evolving new varieties of wheat, chickpea and canola to increase the agricultural productivity of the NWFP.

In this respect, he highlighted in detail the achievements of Parc towards national agricultural research system development.

He informed the scientists that Parc and the PAEC were executing a project on saline agriculture development in Pakistan.

Speaking on the occasion, director Nifa, Peshawar, Dr Jamil Qureshi said that the agriculture sector needed to be improved because 70 per cent population of the country was directly linked with it, hence, development of agricultural would improve the socio-economic conditions of the people.

Highlighting the achievements made by Nifa, he said the organization had developed eight high yielding and widely adapted varieties of wheat, chickpea and brassica.

These varieties, he added, were also playing a vital role in quality seed production, meeting 75 per cent seed requirements of the farming community of the NWFP.

He informed the gathering that Nifa had developed an economical and efficient solar dryer for the farming community in addition to developing standardized methods to enhance shelf life of fresh fruits.

The entomology division was conducting applied and strategic research in integrated pest management in order to reduce pest losses and promote environmental-friendly technologies, he added.