Innovation and Commercialization in Agriculture

Climate change is a harsh reality. Pakistan is among the top ten countries which are severely facing the effects of climate change.The country is an agriculture based economy and earning 19 percent of the GDP from agriculture sector. In current scenario of COVID pandemic whole world’s economy is struggling with economic and food crises. Due to climate change there are challenges of food security and production in Pakistan while COVID pandemic worsen the situation. In all the challenges, it has become the matter of survival to seek the new horizon of innovation and commercialization in agriculture. As the conventional agriculture is not efficiently immune to cater the mass of current challenges. In Pakistan, the agriculture whole sale market is volatile in nature. In all these scenarios, the small farmers facing drastic crises of finance and production. These small farmers make more than the 60 percent of the country’s farming community. To analyze and discuss the solution for the challenges and to train the farmers a training workshop with the agenda of “Innovation and Commercialization in Agriculture” was held in Multan at Ramada Hotel. The participants from the eminent backgrounds were responsible farmers. The workshop was organized by “Agro Consultant Zia“. Mr. Sayyed Zia Hussain hosted the event and also served as the trainer. Other trainers were Dr. Shehbaz from “Serbuland Pakistan” and Mr. M. Safeer Abbas Jafrey from “Agri. Education Pakistan“.Mr. Sayyed Zia Hussain presented the wheat management plan which included wheat fertilizer and wheat pesticide plans. Wheat is a staple food and crucial for country’s economy and food security, said Mr. Zia. He briefed the cost effective fertilizer plan for wheat crop which was highly appreciated by the participants as it is need of the time because of the high prices of fertilizers in the market. Mr. Zia urged the participants to stop the use of DAP (Di Ammonium Phosphate) fertilizer which is thought to be important fertilizer in conventional farming. He said that the high fixation and low availability rate in soil DAP is not suitable for the soils having higher pH level. The idea and motivation about biological control labs was delivered by Mr. Zia during the session of commercialization.Dr. Shehbaz talked about the efficient soil management for higher crop yield. He discussed about the natural farming and sustainable techniques. Conventional farming is not more in the position to ensure the profit in sustainable manners, said by Mr. Safeer Jafrey. He further delivered the information about the farming and profitability of non-conventional crops like; chia, quinoa, avocado, mushroom and medicinal plants etc. The consultancy and research services of Agri. Education Pakistan was also discussed during the session.The new farming methods or non-conventional farming is more resilient against pest and crop diseases, climate adoptive and sustainably profitable, concluded by Mr. Safeer Jafrey. The participants appreciated the knowledge delivered by the trainers and showed confidence to follow the teachings of workshop.This was the second paid workshop of the series held in Multan at Ramada Hotel. The first workshop was arranged in Hyderabad.