'Researchers Developing High Nutritional Value Food Crops'

Agriculture scientists are busy in developing food crop varieties of higher nutritional value to enable people get essential ingredients from normal food and do not need extra support from supplements and multivitamins to stay healthy

MULTAN, Oct 3 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 03rd Oct, 2017 ) : Agriculture scientists are busy in developing food crop varieties of higher nutritional value to enable people get essential ingredients from normal food and do not need extra support from supplements and multivitamins to stay healthy.

Director General (Research) Punjab Dr. Abid Mahmood said that a new wheat variety possessing higher quantity of iron and vitamins was being developed and efforts would be made to ensure that it should reach small farmers once it is finally approved for general sowing, says a release issued by media liaison unit of Punjab agriculture department here Tuesday.

Scientists were also busy carrying out research on increasing production of high nutritional value fodder crops and world's most famous varieties of dates. Moreover, researchers were modifying root structure of different crops to increase their root length, to save flowers of many crops from damage, and varieties that can survive sudden change in weather behaviour, DG Research said.

He said that Pakistani scientists had overpowered cotton bollworms, developed a technology to enable paddy/rice crop survive floods even if water remain standing for fifteen days, and the technology for paddy/rice sowing without water that has revolutionized rice cultivation.

Dr. Abid said that modern technology was being employed to save water adding that there were one million tube wells in Punjab in addition to water resources available through irrigation system.

He said that over thousand agriculture scientists (1079 to be exact) and 25 agriculture research institutes in Punjab were doing a commendable job, achieving big successes and restoring confidence of farmers on agriculture.

They have given courage to farmers to invest big and achieve big adding that now farmers do not hesitate to develop a 40000- plants orchard. Dr. Abid said that researchers have also contributed in production of good quality fruit in the country adding a mango fetches Rs 150 price from international markets upon export.