by Meng Fanrong
FAISALABAD, Jan 30th (Gwadar Pro) – Webinar Series “Regional Geostrategic Challenges: Golden Ring Bloc-An Opportunity for Pakistan’s Strategic and Economic Security” on Food security was held on Friday. Speakers principally highlighted that food security was emerging as one of the key challenges for Pakistan. They underscored that food security contributed to the overall economic and national security of a country, and proposed suggestions for Pakistan to face the challenges posed by the imperatives of food security.
Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan, Vice Chancellor of University of Agriculture, Faisalabad emphasized that policy changes and incentives on land and water sustainability were required to address the issues related to food security.
He stressed that a new corporate farming structure needed to be created in Pakistan to deal with demand-side issues. “The canal system will continue to be the dominant factor for water usage technology in developing countries in the future. Pakistan can adopt Xinjiang’s irrigation model in new canals, which is a great opportunity for Pakistan to learn and replicate from a tested Chinese model.”
Asif Sharif, Founder and CEO of Pedaver Pvt. Ltd., stated that soil is the basis for the development of planting. Soil fertility determines the growth of crops, and directly affects the yield and quality of crops. The world is facing a crisis of soil degradation, and it is urgent to take action to curb its degradation.
Asif Sharif also mentioned the necessity to improve the management level of the agricultural ecosystem, agricultural production technology, and the need to strengthen education training and capacity building of farmers.
Dr. Nauman Khalid, Director of School of Food and Agricultural Sciences argued that Pakistan cannot efficiently distribute and dispose of its harvested food. Pakistan needs to learn management experience from neighboring countries such as China, so as to lay a platform for ensuring food security.
“We can learn from key experiences of China, Turkey and Russia and factor them in our policy-making processes. We can establish an integrated research institute for the Graphic Institute of Management, focusing on the three parameters of education, training and knowledge sharing.”Nauman Khalid further said,” China is far ahead in the simulation and application of crop environmental management systems, and young people in Pakistan need to go to China to learn advanced production and management techniques.”
Chen Jiancheng, Vice Chairman of Huaxia Culture Promotion Association, proposed BRI countries to cooperate in Chinese medicine as the prospect of the Chinese medicine market was quite impressive.
Source: China Economic Net