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Agriculture: Soya bean a miracle crop for national food security


PAKISTAN produces huge quantities of major staple and non-staple food crops, including wheat, rice, maize, sugar cane and cotton. Still, the state of food security in the country is far from satisfactory.

A rise in population, climate change and depleting water resources are only exacerbating the situation, and failure to achieve food security may push the country towards food imports.

Gauging the severity of the food security issue, the federal government has launched the Prime Minister’s National Agriculture Emergency Programme to increase the productivity of some selected livestock and crops, including oilseeds such as canola, mustard, soya bean, etc.

Despite their significant importance in food and feed, oilseed crops are categorised as minor crops in Pakistan. Because of their secondary position at research and policy level, oilseed crops have failed to find a priority place in our cropping system until recently.

Major oilseed crops grown in Pakistan are canola, rapeseed, cotton and sunflower, which are primarily used for edible (cooking) oil needs. With an annual population growth rate of around two per cent, the demand for cooking oil has been on the rise in Pakistan with every passing year, but the local production of oilseed crops is negligible, and country is dependent on imported edible oil.

It can help reduce edible oil imports, which have almost doubled to 3.35m tonnes in the last five years

For example, during the 2016-17 fiscal year, only 12pc of our total edible oil requirement of nearly 3.6 million tonnes was met by local produce. The remainder was contributed by imports, which cost the country around $3 billion.

Edible oil imports have doubled in the last five years, rising from 1.67m tonnes in 2014-15 to 3.35m tonnes in 2018-19, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

Soya bean is a rich and economical source of nutrition, containing up to 42pc of best-quality protein, 22pc oil contents and 30pc carbohydrates besides significant amounts of essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

The soya bean seed also contains many limiting amino acids, namely lysine, linoleic and linolenic acids, which are essential for human but not synthesised by human body itself. Therefore, soya bean oil is the best source of essential elements required for human growth and development.

Owing to its prime nutritional value and multiplex uses, it is also called the “golden bean”. Moreover, it contains the highest amounts of oil and protein contents than other oilseeds.

Soya bean is a non-conventional crop and owing to its marginal cultivation, it is less popular among Pakistani farmers. Interestingly, all the four provinces

of Pakistan are suitable for soya bean cultivation and this crop needs minimal amounts of fertilisers as compared with cash crops like cotton, sugar cane, maize, etc.

Historically, soya bean was recognised as popular crop for intercropping with sugar cane, an ideal combination of an exhaustive and restorative crop. Its cultivation in Pakistan peaked in 1990, but then it started to decline gradually and almost disappeared from our fields by 2010.

Soya bean is a short duration crop, maturing in 90 to 120 days depending on the seed variety and weather. It also fits well in our existing cropping system without clashing with major crops.

Therefore, farmers could utilise rice, cotton, and rain-fed fallow areas for soya bean cultivation. The respective patterns for soya bean cultivation in rain-fed, rice and cotton areas are wheat-soya bean-wheat, rice-soya bean-rice, and cotton-soya bean-cotton.

The cultivation of soya bean after exhaustive crops (wheat, rice and cotton) also helps restore the soil fertility and health for the next exhaustive crop, because soya bean captures nitrogen from air and stores it in the soil.

Due to a lack of policy and low return value, soya bean has failed to earn a respectable position in the existing farming schemes of Pakistan.

The unavailability of quality seeds, lack of production technology, extension services and marketing facilities have worsened the situation.

As the soya bean can help cut edible oil imports to a significant extent, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research needs to launch a massive information drive at federal level in close coordination with provincial agricultural departments and oilseed boards.

The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) has already taken initiatives for increasing soya bean cultivation in a few districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, distributing soya bean seed to farmers free of cost.

PARC and regional agricultural research institutes including Faisalabad’s Ayub Agricultural Research Institute and Swat’s Agricultural Research Institute have developed some novel varieties of soya bean suitable for local soil and climatic conditions.

Better availability of native seed varieties is imperative for the success of the soya bean crop across the country. The efforts being made in this regard need to be accelerated and taken to the level of small farmers rather than focused only on progressive growers.

Small farmers comprise more than 90 per cent of our farming community and a little incentive to smallholder peasants can yield promising results.

Marketing soya bean in Pakistan is no more a problem because of its versatility and wide use in human food, livestock and poultry feeds. Poultry feed has emerged as the biggest user of this crop after oil extraction in the country. Moreover, its other uses in paints, polymers, wood adhesives, synthetic fibres, fire foams, pesticides, medicines, cosmetics and papers make it an ideal crop to embed in our existing cropping patterns.

Soya bean is in indeed a miracle crop, and a little effort by the government to boost its cultivation may save billions of dollars being spent on edible oil imports.

The writer is an assistant professor at the Centre for Climate Research and Development of the COMSATS University Islamabad
 
NHA, NBP sign MoU to plant olive trees alongside highways of Pakistan

A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between National Highway Authority and National Bank of Pakistan for Olive Tree Plantation along the Highways in the country.

Addressing the signing ceremony in Islamabad Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul said the government is taking concrete measures to address challenges arising out of Climate change in the country.

She said the government is establishing green belts along motorways in collaboration with National Highway.
 
China is eager to import meat, potatoes, onions, mangoes and cherries from Pakistan and in this regard, Chinese experts will visit quarantine facilities of the country in February this year, said Chinese Ambassador Yao Jing.

In a meeting with Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, he said that China wanted to build stronger socio-economic ties with Pakistan and enhance its imports from Islamabad as well.

“China has a great demand for meat and poultry products and it can be a lucrative international market for Pakistan,” he stressed. “Both countries must work together for the removal of technical barriers like sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) and quarantine requirements.”

The Chinese ambassador expressed confidence in Bakhtiar as former minister for planning and development because of his contribution to the expansion of phase-II of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (#CPEC).

 
Farmers advised to complete sunflower cultivation by January 31 to February 15

January 19, 2020
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Punjab Agriculture Department has advised farmers of southern and northern Punjab to complete sunflower cultivation by January 31 and February 15, respectively.

In a statement, Spokesman for Department said farmers should use sunflower hybrid varieties with timely cultivation to get a good yield.

He said under Prime Minister's Agriculture Emergency Program, provincial government is also providing a subsidy of 5000 rupees on per acre cultivation of sunflower.

He said maximum cultivation of sunflower will help in reducing country's import bill.
 
Punjab govt to cultivate sunflower across 210,000 acres this year

In order to increase the per-acre yield of sunflower (oilseeds) in the country, the Punjab govt has set the production area target of 210,000 acres for sunflower cultivation in 2020, it was learnt on Monday.

The federal government has already allocated Rs10 billion to increase the production of sunflower (oilseeds) in the country.


‘YIELD COMPETITION’

To achieve the sunflower cultivation target, Punjab’s agriculture department has introduced a ‘per-acre yield competition’ among the farmers of 15 districts. In addition, the provincial government is also giving a subsidy of Rs5,000 per acre to sunflower growers.

The competition would be conducted among the farmers from #Bahawalnagar, #Bahawalpur, #Bhakkar, #DGKhan, #Khanewal, #Layyah, #Lodhran, #Mianwali, #Multan, #Muzaffargarh, #Okara, #RahimYarKhan, #Rajanpur, #Sialkot and #Vihari


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MULTAN, (APP ) :The mechanical boll-picking machine, manufactured by Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI) Multan, could help not only eliminate pink bollworms but also save over one billion Dollars annually.

The machine can enhance per acre yield by three maunds, said Director CCRI Zahid Chaudhry while talking to APP here on Monday.

Dr Zahid said experiments showed that Larvae of pink bollworm remains inside the dried or unripe cotton bolls after the last picking, which, if not tackled, could cause harm to the next cotton crop.

He recalled that cotton farmers had to suffer big losses few years ago due to pink bollworm.

It caused reduction of one million cotton bales, and in financial terms, the sector suffered loss of one billion dollars.

He said that the CCRI Multan was endeavoring to incorporate mechanized farming keeping in view the future demand. He said that the mechanical boll picker could be operated by any tractor, adding that it spreads cotton bolls and expose them to the sunlight that kills pink bollworm and its larvae.

It can also enhance per acre production by three maunds provided plant population is in accordance with the set standard and every plant has at least three bolls, on an average
 
4.5m saplings to be planted in Shangla

February 04, 2020


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Provincial information minister Shaukat Ali Yousafzai launched the campaign. — Reuters/File

SHANGLA: Over 4.5 million saplings of different species would be planted across Shangla district.

This was stated by divisional forest officer Adnan Ali while speaking at a ceremony held to inaugurate tree plantation campaign here.

Provincial information minister Shaukat Ali Yousafzai launched the campaign.

DFO Adnan Ali told Dawn that about three million saplings, including poplar, willow, robinia, eucalyptus, chirr, sheesham and deodar would be distributed among the people during the campaign, while 1.6 million saplings would be planted by the forest department in the district.

He said the forest department planned to distribute 10 saplings to each student both in the boys and girls schools across the district.

DFO Ali said the saplings would be also distributed among the private school students.

On the occasion, Shaukat Yousafzai said it was need of the hour to combat the climate change through massive tree plantation. He said the provincial government was spending huge funds on plantation drives to preserve and enhance the precious forest cover.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2020
 
The safe use of innovative and water in agriculture is the main part of the prime minister agricultural emergency program. After coming to the government, RP technology has been done on 20,000 acres from subsidy till now. 400 ribbon baromatric pondors have been built and 3500 water courses have been improved.



 
Pakistan will cultivate oilseeds, including sunflower, canola and sesame, across 0.5 million acres this year, which would most likely reduce the import bill of edible oil by $345 million.

Pakistan’s import bill of edible oil and oilseeds currently stands at around $4 billion, sources said, adding that this is the third most expensive commodity that the country spends on.

Edible oil is one of the most important commodities of everyday use. Since its inception, Pakistan has been constantly falling short in terms of edible oil production, as about 88% of domestic requirements are met through imports, whereas the local production stands at a meagre 12%.

Since the early 1970s, Pakistani imports have increased by 12.5% per annum and this trend would get worse with the increase in population, sources feared.
 
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations will help enhance the climate resilience of Pakistan’s agriculture and water sectors benefitting up to 3 million farmers through the Climate Smart Agriculture project.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) in this regard was signed between the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Country Representative Minà Dowlatchahi and Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) Secretary Naheed Shah Durrani in Islamabad on Friday.

Adviser to Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said that around 3 million farmers of Sindh and Southern Punjab stand to benefit from the project, which will be implemented in eight districts of the country.

Aslam said that Pakistan has managed to secure around $35 million in grants from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to implement this project and that this was perhaps the first such project in the world to introduce climate smart agriculture. Moreover, he said that the provinces will contribute around $12 million to execute the project.

“Pakistan is amongst those countries which are most affected due to climate change and its agriculture sector has faced the adverse impact of environmental degradation as changes in weather patterns have disturbed harvesting cycles and sowing practices in the country,” he said.

The climate change adviser further said that the project would be implemented as a pilot programme in eight districts of the country, including five in the fertile belt of Southern Punjab and three in Sindh. Of the estimated three million farmers who stand to benefit, two million will be indirect beneficiaries of the project, while another million will stand to receive direct advantages from the programme, he added.

“We will draw lessons from this project and the successful practices adopted to educate and train farmers would be replicated across the country to improve watering practices, sowing of diverse crops and adopting multi-dimensional approach in line with the objectives of developing climate change impacts in the region,” he added.

Aslam said the project will help solve the climate crisis faced by farmers as per the recommendations of the country’s research on Climate Smart Agriculture, which had been launched at the 24th Conference of Parties (COP) in Poland.

FAO officials at the occasion said that these projects will be initiated simultaneously across all designated districts. It will primarily help the country’s cotton belt which was facing serious stress due to shift in climatic patterns.
 
Plantation of date trees and other plants by Gwadar Development Authority at Airport road Gwadar





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ECC has discussed a proposal to increase wheat support prices to Rs. 1400 per 40 kg and will convene a special session to discuss a detailed plan to keep the flour prices at the lowest possible level throughout the year in view of any increase in support price and incidental charges for supply of PASSCO procured wheat to provinces and allied issues related to the procurement of wheat by provinces and the private sector.



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A total of 500 tonnes of hybrid rice seeds from a seed company in east China's Jiangsu Province have landed in Pakistan to help ensure the country's grain yield this year. It is estimated that about 33333 hectares of land will be planted.

 

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