The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) has been committed to peaceful uses of atomic energy since its inception and it has given considerable importance to promotion of the use of nuclear techniques for the development of agriculture in the country.
This is evident from the fact that the PAEC recruited its first biologist way back in 1958 which was followed by the establishment of a Radiobiology Division in early 60’s at the Atomic Energy Centre, Lahore. Subsequently, first Atomic Energy Agriculture Research Centre was established in 1962 at Tandojam to be followed by one institute established each in Punjab and NWFP, namely the Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB) in 1972, the Nuclear Institute for Food and Agriculture (WIFE) at Peshawar in 1982 and the National Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE) at Faisalabad in 1994.
The research in all these centres has been primarily focused on the utilization of nuclear techniques for optimum utilization of available resources to increase production of important crop varieties, development of better methods of, conservation of inputs and products, in addition to maximum use of innovative technologies. The research activities at all these institutes are characterized by critical mix of both basic and applied research which has yielded significant results impacting the economic development of the country.
Agriculture research institutes located in different ecological zones have been able to evolve more than 40 crop varieties of wheat, rice, cotton, sugar-cane, mungbean, lentil and chickpea which are characterized by their high yield, resistance to various pests and diseases. Generally, the area covered by such varieties is nearly 60 per cent in Sindh, 50 per cent in the NWFP and about 20 per cent in Punjab. An up-to-date data and list of varieties released until now of different crop varieties is given in the accompanying Table.
Agriculture has faced acute problems of salinity and water logging. Nearly 14 million acres are reported to have been salt-affected out of which nearly 5 million acres are in arable areas.THe PAEC institutes with the help of nuclear techniques have developed various crops by screening a large number of plant species for their salt tolerance and studying the effect of their growth on soil chemical and physical properties by using different isotopic techniques.
This technology of utilization of salt-affected soils and brackish underground crater has now been optimized and is being extended to nearly 25,000 acres of salt-affected land all over the country using farmers’ participatory saline agriculture development project (FPSADP) for which the government of Pakistan has provided Rs 175 million. This technology is also being extended to nearly 10 countries of the region under the auspices of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The rampant use of pesticides is one single factor which contributes to environmental degradation and serious health hazards. In order to minimize its uses techniques have been evolved for economical, non-hazardous, species specific and long lasting control of insect and pests of crops. This has resulted in substantial savings in controlling sugar-cane borers, fruit flies, cotton bollo-worms and other such pests.
For example, an area of 200,000 acres under sugar-cane in Sindh has been covered by these techniques, thus drastically reducing the use of pesticides and increasing the income of farmers. Similarly, significant results have been obtained in the eradication of fruit fly from fruit orchards. Fruit fly has been a serious threat to the export of fruits, specially mangoes and guavas. This pest can be controlled by employing fruit fly male annihilation techniques complemented with the biological control through predators such as Trichogramma. Similarly, NIFA, Peshawar has developed technologies to control termites in the agriculture areas especially in sugar-cane which has resulted in nearly 70 per cent increase in growers’ income.
In the areas of animal health and production, NIAB has developed an oil adjutant vaccine which has been commercialized under the brand name of “Niab-hs-vaccine”. This vaccine is very effective for the control of Haemorrhagic Septicemia (HS) which is an acute infectious disease of cattle and buffalo. This disease is prevalent in all the wet tropical countries particularly in Asia. Economic losses due to this disease, are estimated to the tune of Rs1.88 billion. The only practical method of control and prevention is timely vaccination of all the animals with a suitable vaccine.
The PAEC has always been in the forefront of acquiring and developing new and emerging technologies and it established the first National Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE) in 1994 at Faisalabad which has now developed into a Centre of Excellence and has been designated as an affiliate centre of the International Centre of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NBGE), Trieste, Italy. NIBGE focuses mainly on four sectors namely agriculture, health, environment and industry.
In the agriculture sector NIBGE has been able to market and commercialize bacterial based bio-fertilizer for rice, wheat and cotton, in addition to the legumes (mungbean, chickpea, lentil, etc.). Facilities and expertise have been developed to genetically engineer crop species for various agronomic traits such as insect resistance and salt tolerance.
In this regard major emphasis has been placed on cotton biotechnology and especially for the development of leaf curl virus resistant cotton varieties. The first transgenic cotton having insect and virus resistance has been developed at NIBGE and has undergone extensive evaluation trials both at the Institute and selected farmers’ fields. NIBGE has thus developed excellent facilities to genetically modify other crops species like rice, tomato, potato which are faced with several viral diseases.
In addition, plant genomic laboratory in collaboration with Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) has been developed to study the genome of cotton and rice which is going to be the backbone of all future developments in plant breeding and evolution of better crop varieties.
In the areas of health, NIBGE has been able to develop PCR-based diagnostics for tuberculosis, typhoid, hepatitis C and leukemia and cytogenesis analysis for genetic diseases. All these diagnostics have been commercialized and are open to public.
In industry, production of chemicals and enzymes most of which are currently imported have been accomplished and optimized and are being upscaled in collaboration with Ravi Rayon Limited. In the area of environmental biotechnology, processes are being devised to detoxify industrial effluents especially from textile and pharmaceutical industry. Similarly, methodologies have been developed using genetically modified organisms to monitor toxicity in various effluents and with environment samples.
All the PAEC institutes have a broad and active training programme for human resource development in the country. A large number of postgraduate students spend their time in the laboratories of these institutes to complete their thesis research leading to M.Sc, M.Phil, or Ph.D NIBGE. In this they are affiliated to the Quaid-e-Azam University and offers M.Phil Biotechnology courses and awards Ph.D degrees. All of them have excellent library facilities which are interlinked and subscribe to all the major journals and online data bases.
The PAEC gives due importance to commercialization of these technologies and thus encourages the RUE activities at all these centres. One of the recent examples is the development of laser land leveller which will help in significantly increasing the water use efficiency and conserve our water resources.
This ‘laser land leveller’ is being manufactured and marketed by the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology (PINSTECH) and is being provided to agricultural departments in Punjab and Sindh for making it available to farmers. (The writer is Member (Biosciences) of the PAEC).