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Pakistan's Biosaline agriculture research to enable cultivation of crops with seawater

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Cutting-edge technology: Research to enable cultivation of crops with seawater

By PPI
Published: November 17, 2014

Wheat-field-at-the-sunset.jpg




KARACHI:
The president of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, Dr Attaur Rahman, has revealed that Pakistani scientists are working in the field of ‘biosaline agriculture’ to grow wheat, maize, rice and other crops using seawater.


“The country is already suffering from water shortage,” he explained. “Global warming will cause massive droughts across the world over the next 20 years. Socio-economic development is no longer dependent on natural resources. Knowledge has become the main driving force for world economies.”

Dr Rahman was delivering an online lecture, titled ‘The Thrilling World of Discovery’ at Prof Salimuzzaman Siddiqui Auditorium, the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi (KU). The lecture was organised by the National Academy of Young Scientists, Pakistan, in collaboration with the ICBSS on the occasion of World Science Day for Peace and Development.

Dr Rahman, who is also former chairperson of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, said that scientists at the ICCBS were working tediously on various topics, while research on Biosaline Agriculture was a part of these efforts. He said that the establishment of the Jamilur Rahman Centre for Genomic Research at ICCBS will help the scientists engaged in research work on the topic.

Dr Rahman added that countries such as China, Singapore, Korea and Taiwan had realised the importance of knowledge and had made great progress. He advised that Pakistan needed to follow the footprints of these countries to achieve advancement on the economic front.

“The world has made wonderful progress in the field of science and technology,” he said. “By using nanotechnology, bulletproof papers are being made which are stronger than steel. These papers are being used to make bulletproof jackets.”

Dr Rahman also reminded the audience about the progress made in the field of science and higher education, when he was chairman of the HEC and the federal minister for science and technology. “The country’s budget for science and technology saw an increase of about 6,000 per cent.”

Nearly 11,000 scholars were awarded PhDs, post-doctoral certifications and split PhDs. Most of these scholars were sent to Europe for higher leaning.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18th, 2014.

Cutting-edge technology: Research to enable cultivation of crops with seawater – The Express Tribune
 
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A proper answer to combat global hunger, congratulations to the scientists involved in the project.
 
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A proper answer to combat global hunger, congratulations to the scientists involved in the project.

Dude imagine if this technology works (obviously we are not the only ones) plus the drip irrigation spread country wide. We can end hunger in our part of the world with that much water freely available.
 
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Dude imagine if this technology works (obviously we are not the only ones) plus the drip irrigation spread country wide. We can end hunger in our part of the world with that much water freely available.

I had high end technique like aquaponics in my mind, every family could grow their own leave vegetables and protein fish at home.
 
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I think the main problem here is the lower water potential of seawater because of which seawater will not get into the roots and up the plant. So i reckon this research is about bio-engineering plant varieties whose cells have lower water potential than seawater.
 
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The main problem is salt stress and salinity hampers with the uptake of water. Also it changes the K/Na balance due to high Na content of seawater. It is very difficult if not impossible.
It is different from saline soil which happens due to improper irrigation. This would happen in Pakistani Punjab because of unlined irrigation canals (kachcha not cement) even the brb canal lining is brick only that too badly eroded. The Himalayan rivers are high salt and silt. The saline farming may help there.
 
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