Pakistan has launched a project to convert millions of hectares of uncultivated waste state land into cultivable land to overcome food insecurity challenges.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif inaugurated the Land Information and Management System Center of Excellence to enhance food security, according to a statement from his office on Friday.

Pakistan will convert 4.4 million hectares out of around nine million hectares of uncultivated land into cultivable productive land by utilising modern agri technologies, it said.

"This state-of-the-art system will help optimise the agricultural production through innovative technologies and sustainable precision agricultural practices based on the agro-ecological potential of land, while ensuring the well-being of rural communities and preservation of the environment," said Sharif.

Pakistan is an agriculture-based economy with its agriculture sector contributing 23 percent to GDP and providing employment to almost 37.4 percent of the nation's labour force.

Currently, the area under cultivation is decreasing while the population-production gap is increasing and agriculture-related imports touching the $10 billion mark ultimately causing economic stress, as per official documents of the project, available to the Anadolu Agency.

Almost 37% in Pakistan face food insecurity

According to the World Food Program, 36.9 percent of Pakistanis are food insecure and 18.3 percent of that number are facing a severe food crisis.

While a wheat crisis is also increasing with total wheat demand reaching 30.8 million metric tonnes [MMT], current production is around 26.4 MMT, a shortfall of almost 4 MM.

"Cotton production has fallen by 40 percent from 14.8 m bales to 5mn bales over the last 10 years," according to the documents.

With the new project, the government, along with the support of the armed forces, will enhance agricultural growth and production to utilise more than nine million hectares of uncultivated waste state land in various phases.

Source: TRTworld.com