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Islamabad, June 08, 2013 (PPI-OT): Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research, Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan said “We will work to trace the pathways to achieve food and nutritional security for a growing population in Pakistan”. He further added that managing food security in Pakistan required an understanding about the dimensions of food insecurity, the future challenges, as well as how agricultural policies affecting food supply and incomes, the poor vulnerable in rural and urban areas, and what was required to be done.
The Minister said this while taking charge of the ministry here today. Mr. Taimoor Azmat Osman, Federal Secretary, NFS and R briefed the minister on the working and important issues of the ministry.
The minister on this occasion added, “Agriculture is Pakistan’s most important sector due to its primary commitment of providing healthy food to her fast growing population. As regards the land resources in country, the total cultivated area has increased by just 40% during past 60 years, while there was more than 4 times increase in population with urban expansion of over seven-fold—resulting into mega-cities as well as rising population pressure on cultivated land”.
Federal Minister, while sharing his views said that a country which could not produce the needed food quantity and had no resources or afford to buy food from the international market to meeting its needs was not food sovereign state: Food security, thus, became a fundamental component of national security that was generally ignored.
“Tremendous efforts are needed to narrow the gap between population growth and domestic food production”,Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan said while addressing the ministry officials.
The Federal Secretary, Mr. Taimoor Azmat Osman said while briefing the newly incumbent Minister, “Reducing poverty, hunger and food insecurity are prerequisites for economic development as food security and economic growth mutually interact and reinforce each other during the development process”.
Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, born in Multan in 1958, is currently Pakistan’s Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research. He previously served as Minister of State for Food and Agriculture. An agriculturist by profession, he completed his LL.B in 1980 from Law College, Multan.
He hails from Multan, Punjab and during his political career, has been an elected Member of District Council Multan, Member of Punjab Provincial Assembly in 1985, 1988 and 1990 and an MNA in 1997 prior to 2013 General elections.
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