ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Food Security and Research, Sikander Hayat Khan Bosan here on Wednesday presided over a special meeting of Pakistan Agriculture Research Council board of governors.
The meeting was convened to discuss the issue of conversion of National Agriculture Research Centre land into residential sector.
The minister acknowledged the contributions by NARC in research and agriculture, said a statement.
Some of the contributions by NARC are development of disease resistant high yielding wheat varieties, development of farm machines, and introduction of European honey bees for enhanced honey production, diagnosis and management of banana bunchy top virus.
It also contributed diagnosis of cotton leave curl virus, introduction of canola type mustard varieties, introduction of strawberry as new crop, bioremediation of sewage water, eradication of Rhinder Pest disease and management of Foot and Mouth disease.
National Agricultural Research Centre was established in 1984, is the largest research centre of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC).
NARC, with a total land area of approx 1400 acres stations physical facilities in term of experimental fields, laboratories, green houses, gene bank, library/ documentation, auditorium, machinery and lab equipment repair workshops, stores and audio visual studios.
This research infrastructure was developed over 40 years with a cost of Rs 108 billion.
Speaking on the occasion, Chairman PARC stressed that to replicate the same is a Herculean task and is impossible in current financial crunch.
Chairman PARC Dr Iftikhar highlighted that CDA plans to generate revenue worth Rs 150 billion from this 1250 acres NARC land, whereas NARC research impact is worth Rs 3919 billion.
To reduce NARC to just thousand acres would serve no good for the country in general and agriculture in particular, he remarked.
The founding chairman PARC Dr Amir termed this proposal by CDA as economic suicide and said that the only question that needs attention is whether agriculture needs to survive in Pakistan or not.
If yes, then research only guarantees survival and development of agriculture he added. He highlighted that it is just because of research contributions by PARC that despite shrinkage of agricultural land in past few decades, the country never witnessed food shortage.
In the end, a resolution was adopted against the proposal of conversion of research land into a residential sector. It was agreed that it is impossible to shift NARC to some other place as shifting of gene bank and mother block of fruit orchards is impossible.
