BAHAWALPUR:Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Food Security, Jamshed Iqbal Cheema Friday said that the federal government would give loans to youth for food processing to cater food needs of the country.
He was addressing a seminar titled, “Agriculture Transformation Plan, a Vision of Prime Minister” at Islamia University Bahawalpur (IUB) here.
He said that we could not cater food needs of the country without promoting food processing. “Our food production has not been meeting the required food’s volume of the country,” he said, adding therefore the federal government had decided to give loans to youth and other stakeholders to initiate food processing.
Cheema informed that the food intake of the country was 38 per cent lesser than in developed countries.
He said that after the government investment in food processing, it was going to become a bigger business than the textile sector. “Our textile exports have been achieving the target of exports by US 15 billion dollars,” he said adding that while they had been assigned target of increasing exports to US 26 billion dollars in coming years. He added that the incumbent government had given Rs 115 billion as a subsidy to the textile sector.
The SAPM said the government has decided to cultivate crops on more lands including utilizing millions of acres of land in the Cholistan desert area.
He said that the government had planted over four million plants of olives while the country had already over 80 million wild olive trees. He said that Pakistan would soon become an exporter of olive oil and honey to other countries.
He said “Prime Minister Imran Khan has introduced policies to increase food, feed, and fibre by promoting livestock and agricultural sectors.”
Cheema informed that only 13 million acres of land was irrigating through the water storage capacity in the country. “Now, we are going to increase the capacity of water storage that would be enough to irrigate 26 million acres,” he added.
Meanwhile, the government had constructed hundreds of small dams besides launching work to construct 10 big dams in the country, he added.
Provincial Secretary Agriculture for South Punjab, Saqib Ali lamented that cotton cultivation had been decreased in South Punjab from five million acres of land to three million acres of land. “We will have to encourage our farmers in this regard by decreasing expenditures on cotton cultivation,” he said.
Dean of Faculty of Agriculture, IUB, Prof-Dr. Iqbal Bendesha said that the government would have to pay special attention to the Cholistan desert to utilize its millions of acres of land for cotton and other crop cultivation.
Kissan Ittehad leader, Tariq Mahmood thanked Prime Minister Imran Khan for defeating the sugar mafia. “Credit goes to Prime Minister Imran Khan as due to his efforts, sugarcane growers got rid of exploitation committed by sugar mills mafia,” he said.
Country Head of Magnetic Technologies, Farid Uddin said that they had been extending their collaboration to Pakistan in organized rainfall to cater water needs
of its agricultural sector. “Magnetic and Ionization technology can bring rains besides controlling floods,” he claimed.
Later, Vice-Chancellor of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur Engr Prof Dr Athar Mahboob thanked the guests. He said that IUB had been playing a very important role in agriculture research. “IUB has been researching medicinal and other important plants and herbs which would make the country prosperous,” he said.