MULTAN, May 20th: Renowned industrialist, former caretaker Punjab Minister for industries, Ex-President of Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan chamber of Commerce & Industry and progressive farmer Khawaja Jalaluddin Roomi has suggested that the government and corporate sector should come forward and form public-private partnerships to achieve sustainable growth in agriculture sector by bringing millions acres of barren land under cultivation.Exchanging views with senior Journalists here today Khawaja Jalaluddin Roomi said,"We have large arid areas in south Punjab: Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bhakkar,Muzaffargarh , Khushab, Layyah. We also have wastelands in Balochistan and Sindh ,Once these lands become fertile, we will be capable of being self-sufficient in wheat, cotton,maize, oilseeds, pulses, etc besides providing a consistent ecosystem for the soil to nurture and grow. He said that around 3.608 million acres of land in the Punjab in the year 2019-2020 was categorised as cultivable wasteland. The land is fit for cultivation but is not cropped on account of numerous reasons, such as water logging and salinity, electricity, technology and resource constraints or inadequate capital.
Khawaja Jalaluddin Roomi said that Pakistan has an enormous agriculture potential. It is fundamentally an agricultural country. Nearly two thirds of its population is dependent on agriculture-related activities. However, 80 percent of Pakistan’s area consists of arid or semi-arid lands. These terrains are vulnerable to desertification — a process by which cultivable land gets degraded to a desert owing to drought, deforestation, primitive and improper agricultural practices, climate change or an amalgamation of these factors.
He was of the view that traditional food production in Pakistan is not sufficient to meet the demand. Pakistan has become a net importer of food. Therefore, in tandem with the current production system, we need to adopt increasing productivity measures. The substantial shortage in agriculture output can be bridged by transforming our barren lands into fertile lands.
Jalaluddin Roomi said that surveys have shown that there are belts of lands in these areas where sweet water aquifers exist. We have not been irrigating these belts since the local communities are not aware of the availability of these aquifers. In some cases, the high cost of drilling and limited access to energy resources make it infeasible for small-holding farmers to operate at an efficient scale.The government must increase its efforts to institutionalise awareness and vocational centres in Pakistan to promote agriculture education. It needs to make programmes to not only accelerate pilot projects to the maturity level but also empower students and entrepreneurs to integrate IT tools and harness tech-skills for smart agriculture, he added.
He reiterated that the corporate sector can help stop desertification and turn around large swathes of arid regions in the Punjab and elsewhere in the country into cultivable land.
Progressive farmer said that experts and agricultural scientists can help farmers customise their solutions to get right fertilisation, crop-selection and agro forestry. Given the right tools, the barren land can benefit from continued research and development and demand-driven production to meet the supply crunch. It can create wider markets for farmers, upgrade international trade flow and create sustainable solutions to support long-term agriculture development.