MULTAN:Secretary Agriculture South Punjab Dr Faisal Zahoor urged agriculture scientists to develop new climate-smart high-yielding crop varieties and find ways to cut the cost of production to ensure food security and financial benefits to the farming community.
Presiding over a meeting with district and divisional heads at the agriculture secretariat for performance evaluation here on Wednesday, he said that extending new technology and methods that gave higher yields at a lower cost to farmers was the need of the hour and will help Pakistani farmers compete with the farming community from rest of the world.
He said that agriculture scientists must move forward to develop better varieties of cotton, wheat, rice, sugarcane, pulses, and vegetables that can survive the climate change phenomenon and meet the market demand.
Dr Faisal ordered laboratory staff to provide soil analysis and pesticide test reports to farmers within 24 hours of receiving the samples, adding that all the facilities have now been made available to them.
He ordered fertilizers controllers to impose heavy fines on hoarders and profiteers and move cases for their prosecution.
Additional secretary task force Imtiaz Ahmad Waraich, deputy secretaries Dr Haidar Karrar and Muhammad Iqbal, and others were also present.