In May 2019 four people in Muzaffargarh were arrested for hoarding sugar and thus contributing to an artificial crisis; in one go-down had stocked 40,000 sugar bags, another berserk had hoarded 70,000 wheat bags; may thousands must have done the same without getting caught. The punishment for those two, was not reported, obviously it was…
Food security is of central importance to national security. That it was not been realized is surprising given that the sieges of forts and were only successful by forming them into cities starvation Now it will have to remain central to our security imperatives. With a population of more than 200 million people more than…
Vegetables constitute an integral component of our cropping pattern but the increasing pressure on food and cash crops has limited the area under vegetables to about 3.1% of the total cropped area. Because they have a shorter maturity period vegetables fit well in most farming systems. Vegetables provide proteins, minerals and vitamins required for human…
Pakistan is climatically capable of growing fruits easily and in abundance. Evidence for the growth of fruit and vegetables in the subcontinent has been provided from ancient times, citriculture is known from the Indus valley for some 4000 years. The climatic diversity is such that it allows cultivation of nearly all types of fruit temperate,…
Grown mostly in the two provinces of Punjab and Sindh, the former Pakistan’s cash crop production accounts for 79% and the latter 20% of the nation’s cotton growing land. The fourth largest producer of cotton in the world, more importantly Pakistan has the third largest spinning capacity after China and India in Asia with thousands…
Produced from sugarcane sugar constitutes Pakistan’s second largest agro-based industry after textiles ranking fifth in the world in cane acreage and ninth in sugar production. An important cash crop in our country. Sugarcane is an important source of income for the farming community employing over 1.5 million people. This includes management, technology experts, skilled and unskilled…
Extreme flooding and drought in recent years has sparked repeated national emergencies in Pakistan, which depends on the Indus for 90% of its food production. In 2010 and 2013 heavy flooding destroyed the harvest and the homes of millions of people while displacing them for months. From February to April 2019, widespread flash flooding affected…
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has submitted an investigation report into the crisis, this was ordered by Prime Minister Imran Khan in February this year. When the two preliminary inquiry reports were presented to him last Saturday, he ordered them to be made public. The reports pointing to sudden price hikes of sugar and wheat were…
The most unprecedented unfavorable business environment ever encountered because of the coronavirus crisis has hit the economy very hard. The economic meltdown thereof has made mandatory layoffs as the only option because many of our good clients have had to reduce their guards on their contract. Only a handful of Embassies have graciously volunteered to reduce “posts”…
Faced with an unprecedented situation from the moment Chinese authorities began fighting the outbreak of Coronavirus in Wuhan city a high measure of organization, flexibility and imaginative implementation was the need of the hour. What has unfolded has challenged even the most advanced countries that have well organized state institutions and health care systems have…
