MULTAN: Secretary of Agriculture South Punjab Saqib Ali Ateel said on Saturday that, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFS and R) has issued a Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) for the registration of biopesticides for the maiden country-wide application of the environment-friendly technique to kill enemy pests.
The registration of biopesticides would promote sustainable environment-friendly agriculture and the country would witness the large-scale application of biopesticides for the first time in country’s agriculture history.
Blind, ceaseless, and excessive use of chemical pesticides has resulted in the development of resistance in enemy pests against these chemical pesticides. Chemical pesticides also kill the crop-friendly pests largely affecting flora and fauna and
resultantly compromised crop production including cotton, Saqib Ali said in a statement.
Biopesticides are part of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) model agriculture department has been advocating for the last many
years and its application would help eliminate resistance in enemy pests of different crops against pesticides, improve the environment, and lessen pollution in the atmosphere.
He said the new initiative was part of the government’s effort to bring prosperity to farmers through efficient yet cost-effective agriculture technologies adding that the application of biopesticides showed encouraging results last year.
Saqib said that farmers were being encouraged to apply biopesticides on cotton crops this year too and their level of awareness was being improved on the IPM model. Agriculture officials were also being trained on IPM technology to enable them to give proper crop management advice to farmers.