Agricultural Research
Activities in Pakistan
Pakistan has a national agricultural research system (NARS) consisting of
federal as well as provincial research institutions. Overall, there are 74
research establishments at the federal level and 106 research
institutions/agricultural research stations at provincial level. Each province
has its own commodity based/ multidisciplinary agricultural research
institutes/research stations and substations that cover crops, livestock,
forestry, and in some cases, fisheries. There are 63 research establishments in
Punjab, 22 in Sindh, 15 in NWFP and 10 in Balochistan. The provinces have also
established mono-crop institutes concentrating on specific crops.
All the provinces have agricultural universities where basic and applied
research is a vital part of their academic activities. In Pakistan agricultural
research is poorly staffed and under-funded in all senses. It is also identified
that the research system in Pakistan offers limited career growth opportunities
and little financial incentives even to the highly qualified scientists. The
high level research leadership often lack skills of human resource management.
Most of the institutions lack access to quality literature and modern lab
equipments to undertake quality research. The scientists have inadequate links
with the international and national research and educational institutions,
entrepreneurs, extension agents and the farmers. The science gap is widening due
to fast moving scientific development internationally. Pakistan must introduce a
more knowledge intensive agricultural research system that must focus on
technological innovations at the system level and has access to modern
biological sciences.
It is widely accepted that the conventional breeding, extensively used during
the Green Revolution era, no longer offer any significant breakthroughs in the
yield potentials and in providing solution to the complex problems of pests,
diseases, and drought stress. The recent achievements in the field of
biotechnology offer the potential to increase the crop and livestock
productivity; improve nutritional quality, broaden crop tolerance against biotic
and abiotic stresses and enhance crop resistance against pests and diseases. The
tools of modern biotechnology are precise and make development of new strains of
improved crop and livestock more rapidly. It is envisaged that the next
breakthrough in agricultural productivity would be due to recent developments in
plant molecular biology, genetic engineering and rapid advancement in genomics.
Traditional biotech activities particularly related to plant tissue culture have
been carried out in few academic and research institutions of Pakistan since
1970s. An exclusive national center of Molecular Biology (CEMB) was established
in 1983-84 at Lahore. The National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic
Engineering (NIBGE) started work at Faisalabad in 1994. During the past few
years, there is growing interest in establishing Biotech centers in major
cities. Despite all these developments, there is no coherent national policy
regarding biotechnology in general and agriculture biotechnology in particular.
Agricultural Biotechnology R&D is suggested to focus on areas of traditional
biotechnology as well as modern biotechnology like genetic engineering and plant
genomics. The techniques of modern biotechnology can be applied to diagnosis of
pests, diseases, contaminants, vaccine development and quality traits;
micro-propagation to provide disease free plantlets of vegetatively propagated
species (that do not readily produce seed); generating genetic markers, maps,
and genomic information in marker assisted selection and breeding; and in
developing transgenic plants with higher yields, disease and pest resistance,
tolerance of environmental stresses, and improved nutrition in crops.
Biological pest control is another promising area for research in agricultural
biotechnology. The high use of chemical pesticides to control pests and diseases
has not resulted only in high production costs but also has serious implications
for environment and national health. The chemical pesticides are highly
inefficient as most of the sprayed chemical are washed away from plant surface
and end up in the soils. The chemical residues have already started appearing in
our food chain and feeds of livestock. In these circumstances, it is
particularly important that efforts are made to substitute chemical pesticides
with bio-pesticides, which are environmentally friendly and are more target
specific (do not destroy beneficial organisms) and do not leave harmful
residues.
In Pakistan, soils are generally deficient in organic matter and essential plant
nutrients, due to high temperature and intense microbial activity. The
application of organic fertilizer (farmyard manure and green manure) is limited
and that of chemical fertilizers is increasing. This coupled with unbalanced use
and faulty management practices the fertilizer efficiency is quite low. It
results not only in rising production costs but also in degradation of land and
water resources. The development and use of bio-fertilizers in combination with
organic and chemical fertilizer may improve crop yields, reduce costs, and
conserve land and water resources. In Pakistan, the government directly or
indirectly supports much of the production of biofertilizers. NIAB/NIBGE,
Faisalabad, NARC, Islamabad, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad and several
provincial institutes are involved in research on bio-fertilizers.
The demand for bio-fertilizers is nominal due to poor and uneven quality, short
shelf life, absence of distribution system, and small contribution to crop
yield. The research efforts to increase the shelf life and effectiveness of
bio-fertilizers through genetic manipulation of strains are crucial for
enhancing acceptance and use of bio-fertilizers in the country. The modern
biotechnology has widened the range of useful traits that can be applied to
develop new varieties by the virtue of technical ability to transfer genes
conveying desirable traits from any organism into any other. Moreover, it
reduces time in which desired changes in plant characteristics can be made to
about half of that required through traditional methods.