Daily Times

In recently observed harsh weather phenomena, research on climate-resistant crops is emerging as a major challenge for agricultural researchers.

Last year floods that destroyed crops on vast tracts of land and recent torrential rains and hail and wind storms that badly affected the wheat crops have already rung alarm bells for the policymakers and experts working in the agricultural sector.

The nation will also be facing serious food security issues with its population almost nearing to 240 million and it is high time to seriously move forward to produce climate-resistant and high-yielding crops.

Although scientists at Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI) Faisalabad are working on climate-resilient varieties of wheat, rice, maize, sugarcane, cotton, pulses, vegetable and oil-seed yet this process needs to be prompted at a mass scale.

“Climatic changes are badly affecting countries including Pakistan not only by changing seasons duration but also affected crops sustenance and yield,” said Dr Naveed Siddiqui, Director Agronomy Department Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI).

Mentioning to after-effects of hail storms and floods, he said, it damages fertility and affects crop sowing cycles. “As the climate change has shrunk winter duration, we are working on seeds with the ability for late sowing and early ripening crops.”

“Our focus is to reduce the duration of different crops to obtain produce within minimum time, avoiding the storm season and harsh weather. We hope to get secure and more yielding crops through this mechanism,” he stated. He said that intensive cultivation is yet another fact for getting more yield by sowing maximum number of plants in an acre.

He informed that the Institute is also working on combination of various crops to enhance overall crops productivity with one crop supplementing the other and helping the farmers to harvest one after another crop instead of preparing bed for other crops after harvesting the one. Dr Fahd Rasul, Associate Professor Department of Agronomy at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) also stresses the promotion of climate-resistant crops in view of changing weather patterns.

“We are also researching on climate resistant crop varieties with ability to get maximum yield and enduring harsh weather impacts like floods, storms and droughts,” he stated. “For this purpose, we have developed a research group on crops for changing environments.”

He said Quinoa is a newly established pseudo-cereal crop introduced by UAF scientists that is now grown by many farmers around Pakistan. “It’s one variety UQ-7 was approved four years back and now two new varieties with improved yield, larger grain and higher production per unit area have been tested at fields and soon these will be approved.” He said Quinoa is a good quality health grain, a native of South American region but is now well-adapted in even dry regions of Punjab like Layyah. Its protein content is higher than cereal crops like rice and wheat, is more nutritious and recommended as Gluten free meal for gluten sensitive patients.

“Safflower or locally Kasumba is another oilseed crop known as pseudo saffron and used in cooking that contains good quality oil and is resilient to climatic stresses,” he said. “Like safflower, another oilseed crop Camelina has been introduced with great oil content and resistant to changing climate.”

He said research on Chia crop, buckwheat and Amaranth is also going on at UAF and hopefully these climate-resilient health grains will soon reach the common people as by the time its production is less and price is high.

Dr Hahd said five more major crops are also being tested for adaptation to climate also ensuring sufficient yield capability. “Our one such recent success is to insert two new genes to present sugarcane seed making it resistant to insects, pests and weeds as well as climatic changes, same time producing better yield.

He also mentioned to testing another high protein-containing crop “Lupin” for its adaptability in semi-arid environment. “It’s protein ratio is about 33-35% as this crop has been tested through various agronomic approaches and has shown good adaptation potential to climate change,”

He said that Agronomy Department UAF is also busy in basic and applied research in different areas of field crop production and soil management under varying agro-ecological conditions and socio-economic conditions of the farming community.

The experts were optimistic that although evolution is a time-consuming activity yet their efforts would bear fruits within the next few years and a number of under research crops varieties would be declared safe for public cultivation after approval by the Federal Seed Certification and Registration Commission.

Climate change is an ongoing phenomenon and may severe further in coming years, therefore timely action was imperative to avert future losses and boost agricultural sector to ensure sufficient food items.

Since Pakistan is already facing malnutrition challenge with its magnitude at 17.7% and the global warming phenomenon is feared to further aggravate this situation, therefore a holistic approach was also direly needed to club efforts of different institutions working in these areas, to cope with upcoming challenges.