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Agri University VC stresses need for steps to disseminate technologies

RECORDER REPORT

FAISALABAD: Professor Dr. Riaz Hussain Qureshi, Vice Chancellor, University of Agriculture Faisalabad has stressed a comprehensive strategy for saline agriculture with adequate measures for the dissemination of saline agriculture technologies to the end users in Pakistan.

Inaugurating a four day training course supported by Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) through Australian Crawford Fund in UAF, here on Tuesday, he said 6.3 million hectare land in Pakistan was salt-affected which needs specific technologies and expertise to make it profitable and productive for the farming community.

He said the engineering approach to salinity was very expensive and Pakistan could not afford it within its own available meagre resources.

He said the University of Agriculture has evolved a solution to live with the salinity by developing crops, trees, herbs, shrubs and micro-organism that could flourish and grow on salt-affected lands giving handsome profit to the farmers.

In this connection, he mentioned, Sitana Saline Project funded by Australia, UNDP, PARC and other foreign donor agencies by growing various crops under saline conditions. He termed it a success, but stressed the need for the dissemination of saline technologies all over the country.

Dr. Ed Barrett-Lennard, Director General, Centre for the Management of Arid Environments at Kalgoorlie and Australian co-ordinator of Crawford Fund said that Pakistan had an enormous salinity problem, which affects the lives of millions of poor people.

Emphasising the need for an agreed national strategy based on consensus between all relevant stakeholders, he said Pakistan faced a severe salinity problem. It is estimated that 25 percent of the irrigated land in the Punjab and 40 percent of the irrigated land in Sindh were salt-affected. Although hard data were not available, it seems likely that 10 to 20 million people live on salt-affected land.

It appears that they are exceptionally disadvantaged in terms of their ability to purchase the basic essentials of life; healthcare is poor, and illiteracy and child mortality are major problems, especially amongst the females. These problems are compounded by the fact that the population of the country is increasing at a rate of about 2.4 percent per annum. We could, therefore, expect that the pressure on land resources would be double over the next 30 years, he added.

He observed that the drainage schemes that have been advocated in the past were only part of the solution. " We should remember that the levels of salinity mentioned above occurred in Pakistan despite the investment of billions of rupees in Scarp schemes," he said, adding that what is required instead is an expanded investment in the development of "saline agriculture."

He said Pakistan had some major advantages in the development of saline agricultural systems. However, it remains clear that despite these impressive achievements, there has been little change in the farmer's fields, he added.

Dr. Ed Barrett-Lennard said that the people of Pakistan needed a major national programme on saline agriculture with eight major features covering all aspects and all relevant stakeholders.

Earlier, presenting the address of welcome, professor Dr. Tahir Hussain, Dean Faculty of Agriculture said that this prestigious seat of learning had the honour to introduce the concept of "living with salinity" as an alternative to the drainage strategy which was now called saline agriculture.

It is the utilisation of salt-affected soils through the cultivation of salt tolerant plants, species and crop varieties to tackle the problems of water logging and salinity in Pakistan. He said 3,900 genotypes of eight crops were screened and subsequently 15 salt tolerant varieties of various field crops were identified for successful planting under the saline and water logged conditions.

Dr. Tahir said that in addition of physiological traits involved in the mechanisms of salinity and water logging tolerance in wheat, rice, cotton and Kallar grass were identified. Saline Agriculture Research Cell launched a saline technology transfer project in Sitana area with excellent results.

He said the importance of extension workers as a link between technology developers and the ultimate consumers could not be over emphasised. He welcomed the extension workers from all over the country and said that participation of six scientists from India was a source of inspiration for us. He hoped that the training workshop would strengthen the bridge between the researchers and the farmers and as such advantages and benefits of saline agriculture technology could be really translated into increased agricultural productivity of vast areas affected by soil salinity and water logging.

Dr. Zahid Hussain, Member, Land and Water Resources, PARC and Pakistani Coordinator of Crawford Fund explained the salient features of the training workshop and said that it would help in increasing the productivity of irrigated saline lands.