Former Speaker National Assembly and Kashmir Committee Chairman Syed Fakhar Imam on Friday said that 70 percent of pests in the country were imported that demand a strict quarantine measures on import of agriculture goods and material.

He chaired a stakeholder meeting on the cotton production and its decline arranged by Department of Entomology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad. He said that we had ignored the agriculture sector for the last 25 years that is a matter of serious concern. He said that agriculture sector is a powerful sector that was employing 43 percent of manforce. He said that neighboring countries are progressing with a large pace whereas we were far-lagging behind in modern agriculture practices coupled with bio technology. He added that no nation can make the development in the modern era without investing on Human Resource Development. He said that from 1970s to 90s, the production of cotton had increased three times due to working of four scientists. We need the scientists of that motivation to meet the demand of ever-increasing population. He said agriculture contributes 18.5 percent in National GDP and the cotton cultivated at an area of 2373 million hectares. He said in Indian government was providing support price to many crops. He called for mechanism of support price for the cotton growers in order to meet the demands. He warned if tangible steps not taken to increase the profitability, the cotton growers would shift to other crops that will more worsen the cotton crises. He said that with the value addition, the Bangladesh was earning much more than us. Bangladesh is not growing a single plant of cotton crop. He said that we bifurcated the education and research in 60 that was not a good decision. He lauded the effort of the UAF for the agriculture and education sector. UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Ashraf said that the climate resilient varieties of the cotton was need of the hour to fight the challenge. He said that the cotton production analysis of last 5 years revealed 13.96 Million bales in 2014-15 followed by 9.91 M (2015-16), 10.67 M (2016-17) and 11.94 M (2017-18). While there were 9.86 M bales in 2018-19 and this was the lowest yield during the last five years. There are a number of factors of low yield indicated which includes cultivated area reduction, climate change, unavailability of quality seed, CLCV, whitefly and pink bollworm. He said Pakistan, pink bollworm is causing 20-30 percent crop losses and resulted in reduction of 4.5 million bales in 2015-16. Pakistan Engineering Council Chairman Engineer Jawed Salim Qureshi said that Pakistan was among those countries which were worst hit by climate changes. He said we have to opt the modern trends to compete with the rest of the world with a special attention on science and technology. Prof Dr Jalal Arif in this welcome said that on the direction of the Vice Chancellor, the meeting is arranged to come up with viable solution for better cotton production Talking about short term strategies stressed upon the need to availability of Irrigation Water During Sowing Time, training of cotton growers/dealers about production technology of cotton varieties, spraying techniques and installation/usefulness of PB ropes, implementation of off-season management of Pink bollworm and whitefly, local manufacturing and availability of pheromone and PB ropes. DG Ayub Agricultural Research Dr Abid Mehmood, DG Extension Dr Anjum Ali Bhuttar, and others notable also spoke.