Fruit and Vegetable Promotion Conference held to promote agriculture production and exports

Staff Report KHI: A conference on “Fruit and Vegetable Promotion” was organized in Karachi by the DPP PARC in collaboration with All Pakistan Fruit and Vegetable Exporters, Importers and Merchants Association with an ambition to prop up agriculture production and exports.

Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, Federeal Minister for National Food Security and Research, while addressing to the participants of the conference said that the objectives of enhancing the exports of fruits and vegetables have successfully attained due to introduction of advanced technologies by agriculture scientists.

“I am proud of the agriculture scientists, whose untiring efforts in research helped boost the exports of fruits, especially mango and vegetables from the country,” Shahid Hayat Khan said, adding that countrys mango was facingsevereproblems of fruit-fly disease, that resulted in rejection of many consignments and consequently denting the repute of country besides inflicting huge financial losses to the national exchequer.

However, scientists of the Department of Plant Protection (DPP) PARC in collaboration with All Pakistan Fruit and Vegetable Exporters,importersand Merchants Association managed tocontainthe disease by introducing hot water treatment technology which resulted in export enhancement. “The country has now become able to export mango and several other fruits and vegetables, opening up new avenues for country exports in the markets of USA, European Union, Japan and other countries,” he said.

Ministry of National Food Security and Research Secretary Seerat Asghar while speaking on the occasion said that the ministry was taking all best possible measures to promote research and development in the agriculture sector.

PARC Chairman Dr Iftikhar Ahmad said that research anddevelopment were the foremost features in order to enable to ensure promising agriculture sector to not only address to the food requirements of the country but also help promote agriculture produce export toearn foreign exchange.

“The agriculture is directly linked to the overall economy of the country, so if we manage to development agriculture on sustainable grounds, it would definitely uplift the growth of economy,” he said, adding that agriculture produce could help enhance overall exports of the country, provided a proper attention is given towards development of new technologies and promotion of value addition.