Daily Times

KARACHI: More than one billion people are suffering from malnutrition and continual hunger.

They are facing interrelated challenges of food security, loss of agricultural biodiversity and climate change, experts on agro sector research and agriculturist opined.

There is a dire need to enhance, implement and negotiate with the standards of growing food crops besides taking measures to enhance water storing resources and climate change, they maintained.

It is crucial to conserve the existing crop diversity and to allow agricultural researchers, breeders and farmers’ access to it, Shakeel Ahmad, chief of Sindh Agriculture Forum suggested.

The current period is that majority of the countries in the world depend on each other with regards to crop diversity for agricultural research and breeding, as none of them is self-sufficient in plant genetic resources.

Concerted initiatives will help improve food security situation in the country and reduce hunger and malnutrition which inflicts many people in many areas of the world, especially Pakistan.

Germplasm helps in increasing food production and improving the level of human nutrition. Crop varieties that we cultivate today around the globe are a result of exchange of plant genetic resources amongst various research institutions and it would not be possible without a global teamwork.

Plant genetic resources are vital constituents which are available to breeders for the development of new crop varieties that was producing higher yields and are able to resist new diseases and extreme weather conditions.

An agro scientist at Pakistan Agricultural Research Council on the issue described that, sharing views and improving awareness about the treaty and discussing the incentives preserve within remained important and at the same time population in world continued to grow and climate change was causing new stress on agriculture.

World food production has to increase by 70 percent by 2050 to meet this increasing demand, while relying on a natural resource base that was about to reach its limits, plant breeding would be crucial to meet the food security challenge in the context of climate change.

Germplasm exchanges at national and international levels are critical in world hunger reduction.

A senior member of Plant Sciences at PARC said objectives in the treaty were the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the equitable sharing of benefits derived from their use.

For sustainable agriculture and food security, the international community has created a powerful tool to tackle these challenges.

Treaty facilitates the access to plant genetic resources on the basis of multilateral ‘facilitated access’ for agricultural research and breeding of new varieties. It has also established a mechanism that facilitates international exchanges of crop genetic material.

There is need to bring vast changes on modern lines at Plant Genetic Resources Institute, a national facility, serving to biodiversity conservation, evaluation and utilisation of valuable crop germplasm to research institutions, academia and farming communities.

Plant germplasm is a vital resource, which is serving as a base for developing new crop varieties with higher yield potential and which have resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses.

The importance of workshops and on the spot education of related people can not be ruled out that would make a difference in right direction.