NEWS: Biotech crops to help reduce poverty, says expert
Daily Times
ISLAMABAD: The sowing of biotech crops will formally be launched in March-April this year in the country, and this will help the government not only ensure food security, but to reduce poverty as well, said Dr Kauser A Malik, Secretary of the National Commission on Biotechnology and member of the Agriculture Planning Commission on Tuesday.
“Bt cotton is already sown in Pakistan. This technology will be extended to other crops too this year,” he said while concluding a lecture delivered by Dr Clive James, founder and chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA). Kauser Abdullah lamented the bureaucratic hurdles being created in the way of implementation of new technologies. However, all the necessary arrangements are now well in place and the new Bt crops will be grown in Pakistan, he told a gathering, where no senior official was present from the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL). However, the lecture was attended by officials from the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC) and National Agriculture Research Council (NARC).
Earlier Dr Clive James released the ISAAA annual report and said that breaking the 100 million hectares marke for the first time and achieving the second highest growth in the past five years global biotech crop area jumped by 12 million hectares or 13 percent to reach 102 million hectares in 2006.
By 2015, ISAAA predicts, more than 20 million farmers will plant 200 million hectares of biotech crops in about 40 countries, he said. Growth during 1996 to 2006 is equivalent to an unprecedented 60-fold increase, the biggest adoption rate of any crop technology. Additionally, the number of farmers planting biotech crops surged to 10.3 million, from 8.5 million farmers in 2005, he added.
The report indicated that the growth of biotech crop adoption was substantially higher in the developing world at 21 percent versus the industrialised nations where adoption grew by 9 percent. The developing countries now account for 40 percent of the global biotech crop, the report said. The report said that Bt cotton has contributed significantly to the yield increase in cotton in India from 308 kg lint per hectare in 2001-02 to 450 kg lint per hectare in 2005-06. In turn in yield from Bt cotton has been a major contributor to increased exports from India, which soared from 0.9 million bales in 2005 to 4.7 million bales in 2006.
In Asia, according to the report, India is emerging as a key leader and the country tallied the most substantial percentage increase at 192 percent or 2.5 million hectares to total 3.8 million hectares, jumping two spots in the world ranking to become the fifth largest producer of biotech crops in the world, surpassing China for the first time.
