FAISALABAD – Food and agriculture experts are unanimous on the point that world food security can be threatened if wild relative plants’ species of the crops grown by mankind are not conserved. Some of them think that climate change will bring great environmental changes, food insecurity, water shortage, terrorism, refugees, natural, economic, and social disaster and loss of biodiversity in a more dangerous fashion.
In this perspective, it is important to note that Pakistan is a signatory to CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) and is a land of contrasts in many respects as no other country has such a variety of habitat and topography. A recent study predicts that 22 percent of wild relatives of important food crops such as peanuts, potato and beans will disappear by 2055 because of the changing climate and different threats. These were the views expressed by the experts at a workshop held at University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF).
The researchers declared that out of 30,000 edible plant species, slightly over 100 plant species are cultivated to provide 90 percent food and among them three species wheat, rice, and maize are providing two/thirds of the total food. The one-day workshop held at UAF’s Senate Hall had invited leading researchers, scholars and food and agriculture experts to speak on the occasion.
Those who shared their views included UAF Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan, Karachi Federal Urdu University of Arts and Science Vice Chancellor Dr M Qaiser, Pakistan Science Foundation Chairman Dr Mansoor Hussain Soomaro, Dr Zabta Khan Shanwari, French Attache of Scientific Cooperation for Universities M Frederic Bessat and Science Faculty Dean Professor Dr Muhammad Ashraf.
Mansoor Soomaro, speaking as the chief guest, said the spray of pesticides on the crops was causing hazards to humans as well as other habitats, he said, adding they had an ethical responsibility to maintain the natural order on the earth. He further said the government had announced 2011 to 2020 a decade of biodiversity, so the people should focus on its utmost awareness.
Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan, as a guest of honor, said biodiversity was vital for sustainability of life on the plants and the university remained on the forefront in creating awareness among the masses about the events happening around them. He added that during the last 50 years, UAF had made tremendous contributions in terms of producing an uphill volume of more than 850 PhDs and training more than 50,000 galvanised and skilled people in all spares of business.
He said today knowledge frontiers were moving very fast by virtue of information technology and if people kept in view the current enrollment, this university would produce the same number of trained manpower in the next eight years that must be produced in last 50 years. M Frederic Bessat said France was rich in biodiversity in the world and a proud member of the international pledges in this respect.
He expressed his concern over the growing trend of deforestation in the world, saying that 34 percent of forests had vanished during 1999 to 2010. Dr Qaiser emphasised the need for preservation of biodiversity and called the increase in extreme weathers, like floods, droughts, cyclones, less winter snowfall, melting glaciers, water shortages, changing conditions for agriculture and forestry, shifting fish stocks, high costs of mitigation and adaptation an outcome of human mismanagement.
He said that Pakistan, in the proximity of major centres of diversity, had been a source of genetic enrichment and there was a need to conserve the varieties which had resistant genes for diseases, drought, extreme heat or cold etc. About 75 percent crops diversity was lost from 1900 to 2000 by the mankind while to satisfy the basic demand of food etc for ever-increasing population was an uphill task, he said, adding that there was an urgent need to conserve and use the genetic biodiversity that still existed and enhanced the productivity on a sustainable basis.
He further said that genetic resources were being lost at an alarming rate due to the climatic change, land degradation, population pressure and adoption of improved varieties. Dr Zabta Khan Shanwari said that changes in the composition of micro-biomes were frequently associated with infection and disease and a rich microbial community appeared to regulate the abundance of endemic microbial species that could become pathogenic when overly abundant.
He added the natural world holds secrets to the development of new kinds of safer and more powerful painkillers; treatment of a leading cause of blindness, macular degeneration, and possible ways of re-growing lost tissues and organs by, for example, studying amphibians, salamanders etc.
He further said that natural ecosystem had been altered and the current rate of species of extinction was greatly accelerated, 1000 times greater than the past as 17,000-100,000 species used to vanish every year coupled with disruption of natural hydrological and chemical cycles. Dr Muhammad Ashraf termed the biodiversity as a full range of variety and variability within and among living organisms and the ecological complexes.
He said that animals provided 30 percent of human requirements for food and agriculture whereas more than 20,000 species were used for medicinal purposes. He further said that human population growth, pollution and diseases, habitat loss and degradation, introduction of invasive alien species, over-exploitation of natural resources, global climate change, energy crisis, and international trade of game species challenges to biodiversity were the challenges to the biodiversity.
