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Punjab agri dept launches plan to boost wheat output

RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: In compliance with the directives of Punjab Governor, Lt-Gen Mohammad Safdar (Retd), the provincial Agriculture Department has undertaken a comprehensive programme for boosting wheat production, said a handout here on Sunday.

To increase the wheat crop production, the Agriculture Department has completed the two phases of a training programme, under which agriculture officers, extra-assistant directors and deputy directors of the department were imparted training by wheat experts in various fields.

Meanwhile, as many as 860,000 farmers have already received this sort of training. For this purpose, a massive publicity campaign was also launched through the electronic and print media. As a result, not only a phenomenal success has been achieved in bringing more area under wheat cultivation but improved production technology has also been adopted by the growers.

This is evident from the fact that 3.85 percent more certified seeds have been used while 289,000 bags of 100 kg graded seed have been used by the farmers during this Rabi crop.

Similarly, the off-take of DAP during October and November, 1999 was 147 percent more, as compared to the corresponding period of 1998, while herbicides were also used on an estimated area of 25.2 percent of the total wheat area, as compared to 13.75 percent during 1998, the handout said.