Islamabad : Minister for National Food Security Syed Fakhar Imam has stressed the need of joint ventures at international level for public awareness and promotion of more efficient climate resilient agriculture production systems.

He was addressing the 25th session of the Near East Forestry and Range Commission which was virtually hosted by Egypt.

Syed Fakhar Imam said agriculture is likely to face severe impacts from climate change, reducing the amount of food we can grow at a time when more is needed than ever before.

He said inspite of COVID-19, Locust attack and extreme climatic events, the performance of Pakistan’s agriculture sector during 2020-21 was encouraging as it grew by 2.77 percent against the target of 2.8 percent.

He said under the directions of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan has already planted one billion trees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while National Scale Ten Billion Afforestation Project is under way.

The Minister said these initiatives will increase the forest cover area, desertification control, climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem improvement.