“Getting food self-sufficiency is the key to protect a country instead of acquiring modern weapons and nuclear arsenals,” senior scientists and biotechnologists told a press conference at HEJ Research Centre of Chemistry, University of Karachi, last week.
Renowned scientist Prof. Dr. Anwar Nasim, who is also the Chairman National Commission on Biotechnology, said that presently, Pakistan is producing enough wheat to feed its people and also exporting wheat but we are dependent on other countries for various other agricultural products like edible oil, tea and sometimes sugar.
“We can become self-reliant with the help of biotechnology to a large extent in producing these products locally,” he maintained.
Emphasizing the need for applying biotechnology in agricultural sector, Dr. Nasim warned that with the growing population, the gap between food production and food requirement would widen in Pakistan and it could only be bridged by using modern scientific methods.
Director HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry Dr. Iqbal Chaudhry recalled that apart from using biotechnology in agriculture, the technology could be used in developing vaccines against deadly diseases like polio, influenza, hepatitis and even dengue fever, besides insulin could be prepared from plants and administered orally.
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