ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) has completed 101 projects worth about Rs 3 billion, initiated under Research for Agricultural Development Programme (RADP) for development of agricultural sector in the country.
The project was launched with a total cost of Rs 2,963 million which was focusing on a broad based approach to agricultural growth through science based solutions, said Spokesman PARC, Sardar Ghulam Mustafa.
In a statement, he said the project was also aiming at to make agri-sector more profitable oriented, enhancing productivity, diversification of high value crops with demand based production. The other objectives of the project was value addition of agri-products to develop the value chain and better competitive market prices of the products to address the rural poverty, he added.
Ghulam Mustafa said by the end of last financial year, more than 148 research activities and projects were launched across the country under the project out of these, 101 sub-projects have completed. He said research activities and projects under progress reviewed annually in order to assess progress and output of each project and funds utilization, he added.
The PARC is continuously making improvement in its research and development programs to address the priority research areas and respond to the changing demand of food security and accessibility in the country, he remarked.
Under RADP, he said PARC has made a significant progress in crop sciences, natural resources, animal sciences, agriculture engineering and social sciences.
These sub-projects addressed various emerging problems of crop production, farm machinery, socio-economic surveys and human resource development, he added. He said RADP has also resulted in enhancement of genetic diversity of crops, development of a number of competing local hybrids of sunflower, canola, mandarin, tomato, sorghum sudan grass and short duration groundnut variety.
