PESHAWAR – The Khyber Pakthunkhwa Agriculture Department has unveiled Rs100.750 million incentives package for sugarcane growers of the province to increase per acre’s production besides providing financial support to timely counter diseases in wake of climate change challenges.
Officials in Agriculture Department KP told APP on Sunday that these incentives would be given to sugarcane growers aimed at to increase ‘Gur and Sugar production besides financially facilitating poor farmers in all districts of the province.
The incentives will be provided to the farmers in the shape of nurseries, kits, machines and technical support to increase and protect their crops in wake of challenges posed by climate change and global warming.
Khyber Pakthunkhwa is blessed with variety of climates suitable for cultivation of all kinds of crops including sugarcane, vegetables and fruits. The plain areas of Khyber Pakthunkhwa including Mardan, Charsadda, Nowshera, Swabi, Peshawar, Kohat, Karak, DI Khan, Bannu and Haripur are most suited for sugarcane farming due to presence of an effective irrigation system and vast area for cultivation of this cash crop.
Terming sugarcane is one of the main crops of KP, he said, in 2015-16 it is sown on an area of 111586 hectares having production of 5472889 tons.
Traditional cultivation techniques of this crop are laborious, costly and water exhaustive and per hectare yield of sugarcane of Khyber Pakthunkhwa is low compared to other provinces of the country.
To address these challenges, he said introduction and dissemination of modern Chip Budding Technology (CBT) will be introduced which on one hand will reduce the inputs cost and on other hand will improve the yield up to 50pc without increasing the area under the crop. This will also add to the conservation of irrigation water up to 15pc.
He said chip budding is one of the easier forms of grafting. “A bud, rather than a shoot, is attached to a rootstock to make a new plant. With practice, this technique can be mastered by anyone and just one bud is needed to make a tree that is very efficient besides making good impact on sugarcane production.”
Approximately 10,500 farmers would be benefited from this package. He informed each farmer will be provided Rs9995.238 as incentive in order to bolster sugarcane sector in the province.
Special plans for capacity buildings of farmers and sugarcane growers were chalked out besides holding of farmers conventions, field days and seminars to increase their technical knowhow regarding how to get maximum production.
