FAISALABAD:Punjab Caretaker Minister for Agriculture, Energy, Industries, Commerce, Investment and Skill Development SM Tanveer on Tuesday said that the government was mapping out a comprehensive strategy to enhance citrus production according to international standard in addition to addressing the issues relating to citrus seed, nursery, diseases and pest management for fetching precious foreign exchange for Pakistan after meeting local demands.
He was presiding over a meeting on citrus at University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (UAF) here on Tuesday.
He said that sustainable agricultural development was the top priority of the government. He said that citrus action plan committee led by Vice Chancellor UAF Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan was constituted to address the citrus issues.
The minister said that agricultural experts, academia, industry and policy makers had to make joint efforts to achieve food security. “Our agricultural institutions are making great efforts to meet the agricultural needs of the ever-growing population because being an agrarian, our prosperity and poverty alleviation is directly linked with the sector”, he added.
UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said that as per the FAO reports, the country’s citrus production was 10.2 tons per hectare in 1970 which was 11.6 tons per hectare in 2021.
He said that in China, the citrus production was 2.29 tons per hectare which was recorded 15.3 tons per hectare in 2021, Brazil 15 tons per hectare in 1970 and 27.1 tons in 2021.
He stressed the need to promote seed-less citrus variety in the country which was in high demand at the international level.
“We have developed the modern nursery mechanism with public-private partnership”, he said and called for enhancement of existing and new citrus germplasm to expand the harvest window.”
He said that UAF and University of California USA completed the collaborative project on citrus psyllids with the help of tamarexia radiata parasitoids. Dr Mark Hoodie and Dr Jalal Arif completed this project for the management of citrus psyllids.
Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan also stressed the need of rehabilitation and rejuvenation of existing orchards and said that most of our orchards were malnourished and deficient in micronutrient.
He said that there was no regular soil, water and leaf analysis in orchards to set base for nutrients application. He said that faulty intercropping especially fodder cultivation was common practice.
Director General (DG) Agriculture Extension Punjab Ishtiaq Hassan, Chief Scientist Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI) Dr. Muhammad Akhtar, Pro-Vice Chancellor/Dean UAF Prof Dr. Muhammad Sarwar Khan, former DG Agriculture Extension Dr Anjum Ali Bhuttar, Dr. Muhammad Nawaz Mekan, UAF Deans Prof Dr Qamar Bilal, Prof Dr Farzana Rizvi, Prof Dr Azam Khan, Prof Dr Masood Sadiq Butt, Dr Khalid Mushtaq, Prof Dr Ijaz Bhatti; Principal Officer PRP Prof Dr Jalal Arif, Prof Dr Aman Ullah Malik, Director Research Prof Dr Jafar Jaskani, Prof Dr Asif Kamran, Prof Dr Riaz Virk, Dr Amir Maqsood Gill, Dr. Muhammad Dildar Khan Gogi, Dr. Muhammad Tayyab, Director Agriculture Extension Faisalabad Ch Abdul Hameed, Deputy Director Information Qavi Irshad and others also attended the meeting.