Pakistan, China join hands to augment wheat production, enhance food security

The Star

The recently established China-Pakistan Joint Wheat Molecular Breeding International Lab at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad is aimed at enhancing food security, human resource development and training of students and scientists through knowledge and research sharing.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00 China and Pakistan have recently established the Joint Wheat Molecular Breeding International Lab

00:05 at Quaid-e-Azam University in the capital city of Islamabad.

00:09 Funded by the Science and Technology Partnership Program of the Chinese Ministry of Science and

00:15 Technology, the lab is aimed at enhancing food security, human resource development,

00:21 and training of Pakistani students and scientists through knowledge and research sharing.

00:27 Hafiz Salman, a 24-year-old Pakistani student, was keenly performing digital image processing

00:34 to analyze the size and shape of wheat grains at the lab.

00:37 As you know, Chinese varieties are known for their short height and they are resistant to

00:43 lodging. So we want to transform this character from Chinese varieties into the Pakistan varieties.

00:49 We are working in collaboration with the Chinese scientists and we want to transform this character

00:57 into the Pakistani characters varieties so we can enhance the yield of the wheat and it can help in

01:03 future as well. The project is expected to help increase the grain yield and thus better secure

01:09 food security. So the varieties which we have tested under this project, so the initial results

01:16 that we observed that the yield potential of these varieties is eight to ten percent more than the

01:23 conventional wheat varieties which we are growing here. So this result is very promising. So food

01:29 security is a very big challenge not only for Pakistan but also for China. And to achieve this

01:38 food security we need the continuous development of staple food crops. With the establishment of

01:45 the joint lab, Pakistan also set up its first ever speed wheat breeding center at the National

01:51 Agricultural Research Center to develop multiple generations of wheat minimum time by providing

01:58 samplings with favorable conditions. Breeding is a long process and for registration it takes like

02:06 12 to 15 years in Pakistan. And so now we are able to make develop six generations per year.

02:15 So by this system we can reduce six to seven years from our breeding program to develop a

02:23 new variety. It's very good to enhance and the capability of Pakistani producers and Pakistani

02:31 farmers. So by this system we can see that Pakistan can increase their exports. Pakistan can have

02:41 to overcome their food security matters. So this CPEC is very important for Pakistan.

02:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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