ISLAMABAD: Since the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) entered its second stage, Pakistan-China agricultural cooperation has achieved substantial results.
According to the research report, “10 Years of Belt and Road Initiative – CPEC”, released by the financial think-tank KASB | KTrade, several advanced Chinese agricultural technologies are promoted in Pakistan, while Pakistani and Chinese universities have also joined forces to develop crop cultivation techniques.
Dr Muhammad Ali Raza, a graduate of China’s Sichuan Agricultural University, promoted China’s maize-soybean strip intercropping technology in Pakistan with the help of Professor Yang Wenyu.
In 2022, the initiative convinced about two hundred farmers to adopt this technology. It resulted in a total demonstrative area of maize-soybean strip intercropping technology to surge over four hundred acres, about 2.67 times that of last autumn in Pakistan. This technology will assist Pakistan in reducing soybean oil imports, saving valuable foreign reserves.
Cooperation in hybrid wheat and rice
Chinese hybrid wheat demonstration fields in Pakistan have been maintained at nearly 3,000 to 5,000 hectares.
About 80 percent of farmers in Pakistan are engaged in wheat production, and the total area of wheat cultivation occupies as much as 40 percent of the total agricultural land in the country. Hybrid wheat seed yields 40 percent more per acre than conventional varieties, which will help Pakistan overcome shortages due to floods and resume wheat exports like in 2011-2013.
