FAISALABAD:Director Agriculture (Extension) Chaudhary Abdul Hameed said that promotion of cultivation of oil-seed crops was imperative as the country was spending huge foreign exchange to import edible oil to cater to 66% domestic requirements.
Addressing a Farmers’ Day function in Chak No 108-JB here on Wednesday, he said that Pakistan was importing edible oil of Rs 300 billion per annum to cater to domestic needs.
He said that the government had launched a National Project 2022-23 to increase production of oil-seed crops and under this project, teams of agriculture department had been activated in the field to convince growers to cultivate oil-seed crops over maximum space of their land.
He said that sunflower was among those oil-seed crops which could help in making Pakistan self-reliant in edible oil. He added that the government had earmarked Rs 5.11 billion for National Project of increasing production of oil-seed crops.
Deputy Director Agriculture (Extension) Chaudhary Khalid Mehmood said that cultivation of sunflower crop had started from the 1st of January and the agriculture department had set a target of 210,000 acres which would be brought under sunflower cultivation across Punjab this year.
He added that sunflower crop could easily be cultivated twice in a year and its maturity period was from 100 to 11 days.
Chief Scientist Muhammad Riaz said the best time for sunflower cultivation in central Punjab area was from
January 1 to 31. The growers should use 2 kilogram (kg) seed of hybrid sunflower varieties, including Hi-Sun-33, T-40318, Agrora-4, S-278, NKR Mini, US-666, US-444, ParSun-3 and Sun-7, if it had 90% or more growth.