A journey across the country from the Arabian Sea
up to the Himalayas takes you through vast barren
terrains unfit for agriculture mainly due to salinity
- a jinx for the agricultural economy of Pakistan.
These salt-prone lands can be converted into productive
prairies by growing salt tolerant forage grasses
irrigated with easily available saline/brackish
water. Does it really work? The Institute of Sustainable
Halophyte Utilization (ISHU) at the University of
Karachi (KU) has successfully demonstrated it.
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| Researchers
at ISHU-KU have successfully developed a cropping system
that can turn barren saline lands into sustainable croplands.
Details of this study have been published in the February
2009 issue of a reputable journal
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment that mainly
focuses on innovative efforts in agriculture and ecology.
The authors claim to have replaced corn as cattle feed
with a salt tolerant wild grass capable of successfully
growing in saline areas of the country where conventional
crops fail to flourish. Importance of this research
has also been acknowledged by world-renowned magazine
Science, as it cited this research in its Editor's
choice of the week section that highlights imperative
research studies only. |
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| Dr. M. Ajmal
Khan, Professor and Director of ISHU-KU and his team
have been involved in halophyte research since the last
25 years. Prof. Khan, also the first author of the above-mentioned
publication emphasizes that so far little has been accomplished
in improving salt tolerance of salt sensitive crops
by using state of the art molecular tools. Therefore
"instead of fighting with nature we should work
in harmony with it by using saline resources towards
the benefit of mankind". He believes that growing
a fodder crop on saline tracts, usually considered waste-land
using low quality water would have enormous impact on
the life of low income rural communities of the region".
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At present ISHU-KU researchers which include Dr.
Raziuddin Ansari, Mr. Haibat Ali and Mr. Adnan Yosuf
are focusing on a cropping system consisting of a
wild grass, Panicum turgidum, with quite low levels
of salt in its biomass along with a salt accumulating
perennial - which could remove salt by about half
its dry biomass from the soil despite high summer
temperatures. Such a system could produce up to 60,000
Kg/ha of cattle feed per year - a highly profitable
venture, no less or even better than growing a conventional
crop.
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The research team raised calves on Panicum, with
promising results and the meat quality was as comparable
with conventional meat. Detailed chemical analyses
of both grass as well as meat do not indicate the
presence of any secondary metabolite in concentrations
injurious to health.
ISHU-KU is collaborating with scientists from USA,
China and Japan and hope that it will come up with
several other such environment friendly and sustainable
alternatives. However, due to global economic scenario
and particularly that of Pakistan, cut in allocation
to science was expected, which might hamper the pace
of the progress.
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Considering the broader national interest it is
expected that the government would take a greater
interest in this research to develop a viable industry
for low cost fodder and high quality meat production.
This is expected to contribute not only meeting the
local demand for meat as well as a source of foreign
exchange in this protein starved region.
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