ISLAMABAD:Speakers at a conference on Tuesday called for expediting efforts to conserve rapidly deteriorating natural resources including soil and water in order to maintain national food safety and security as well as avoid serious climate threats, which impact the local ecology and biodiversity.
The huge bulge of youth should be engaged and provided a platform by creating linkages among academia, industry and national research institutions to find out innovative solutions to emerging challenges like water scarcity, soil infertility and climate resilience, they said while addressing a five-day International conference on the role of water-energy-food system for a climate resilient Pakistan.
The conference is being organized by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in collaboration with ministries of planning and development and water resources in connection with Pakistan Water Week 2022.
The event is aimed at focusing on improving water governance and strengthening water, food security and nature-based solutions in order to achieve sustainable economic growth and development in the country.
Speaking on the occasion, Chairman Pakistan Agriculture Research Council Dr Ghulam Muhammad Ali stressed the need for establishing small and mini dams to conserve water and bringing more area under crop production to tackle with increasing local requirements as well as enhance exports.
He said that due to lack of awareness and mismanagement huge quantity of water is wasted daily, adding that with capacity building and enhancing resilience, the water wasted in floods could be used for irrigation for many years.
With construction of small and medium dams, over 8 million hectares of land could be brought under crop production, he said adding that building of small and medium dams in Balochistan Province would help bring waste areas under different crop production.