People to buy expensive tomato or don’t eat : Sikandar Bosan

Lahore : Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, Federal Minister for National Food Security & Research, has said that he does not see elections before March 2018 and all wishes of Imran Khan could not be fulfilled.

He was talking to the media here after attending a workshop on “Advances in Agricultural Biotechnology and Regulatory Affairs”, as chief guest.

The event was jointly organised by Pakistan Biotechnology Information Centre and Forman Christian College University (FCC) here at the FCC Auditorium on Monday.

“It is not necessary to fulfil Imran Khan’s wish of holding elections before time,” he reacted over a question by a journalist.

To another query about return of Nawaz Sharif, Bosan said that Nawaz Sharif has a big role in politics of Pakistan and his party has big mandate. He said all rumours have died down with the return of Nawaz Sharif.

To another question about high rates of agricultural commodities, he replied that the situation would be normalised in some days.He refused to import tomato from India and said people to but expensive tomato or don’t make it part of cooking to their food. Media never given news when tomato was selling at the cheapest rate of Rs 5 per Kg.

Earlier, addressing the workshop, the minister said that National Assembly and Senate have approved `Plant Breeders’ Right Bill’ which would encourage plant breeders and seed organisations of both public and private sectors to invest in research and plant breeding, development of superior varieties of field, vegetable and ornamental crops and facilitate access to protected foreign varieties and new technologies.

The bill would also pave the way for foreign investment in future as it would protect their rights, and many foreign companies were in contact with the government to introduce their products in the country, he added.

He said that biotechnology was a cutting edge technology that has the potential to lead to economic prosperity especially in the rural areas for any country. It has the capacity to revolutionise agriculture and environment sectors to meet the challenges of food security, he added.

He said that governmental research institutes were working hard for use of biotechnology in agriculture and done a marvellous job in hybrid seed production as production of maize in Pakistan was increasing every years due to use of hybrid seed.

He said that there was a dire need to use modern technology in agriculture sector to meet food challenges and government was committed to transform the agriculture in an industry. That is why the government was revamping private research sector through various incentives.