Pak’s quest for agri-innovations

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has recently unveiled a dynamic portfolio of 40 diverse projects strategically dispersed across various regions of Pakistan. These initiatives, with varying scopes, financial parameters, and target audiences, underscore the FAO’s commitment to fortifying agriculture and food security in the country. As said, these initiatives span a spectrum, including enhancing agricultural productivity and sustainability, supporting livestock and fisheries development, and implementing food security programs to alleviate hunger and malnutrition.

Pakistan’s economy is marred by multiple issues relating to economic policies, administrative and planning hitches, and local regulations relating to farming, livestock, agriculture, and housing that not only tarnished the overall economic outlook but severely collapsed the agricultural industry in the Country. Historically, Pakistan has one of the world’s largest irrigation systems, along with highly cultivable lands, multiple weather conditions, and a conducive environment, yet the South Asian nation fell victim to food insecurity, and a lack of food grains, and vegetation because the successive governments could not maintain, grow and expand that valuable infrastructure while improper irrigation practices and salinization rendered millions of acres of land uncultivable and barren. At the same time, the giant of housing societies gulped up a huge chunk of Greenland and pitched up residential buildings and business districts in most parts of the country. Thus, a grain-sufficient nation turned into a food-deficient state over the past decades.

Meanwhile, the pace of agricultural research and innovation has largely been marred due to bureaucratic hurdles, corruption, and nepotism that did not move forward from flimsy claims, towery projection, and scanty results throughout the past. Presently, the FAO has extended massive agricultural support and launched numerous initiatives and programs aimed at strengthening Pakistan’s agriculture and food security sectors. Now, it is the duty of the planning division, ministry of Agriculture, and other relevant departments to avail of this opportunity and achieve optimum results from this endeavour. So, this country came out from persistent grain shortages, food insecurity and commodity price hikes permanently.