Farmers, students, scientists, and researchers showed keen interest in new agricultural technologies and practices offered by CIMMYT at the women farmers’ festival organized by Lok Sanjh Foundation at the National Agriculture Research Centre (NARC), Islamabad, Pakistan, on 11 November 2015.
At the festival, CIMMYT showcased high yielding wheat varieties that are resistant to rust, especially Ug99, as well as biofortified and normal yellow and white maize varieties, and information on conservation agriculture.
CIMMYT encourages farmers young and old, men and women, to grow their own wheat for a food secure world. As part of CIMMYT’s mandate to ensure food security, 2,500 smallholder farmers received seed of Faisalabad-08, Punjab-11, Pakistan-13, and NARC-11, wheat varieties that are resistant to rust, including Ug99, at the festival. Seerat Asghar, Federal Secretary, Ministry of National Food Security and Research, Imtiaz Muhammad, CIMMYT country representative, and Nazim Ali, USAID Pakistan representative, distributed the seed.
The team collected farmer information for future follow-up on the wheat varieties’ performance and yield improvement. More than 60% of the recipients were women farmers from the Pothwar region of Punjab province, including Chakwal, Fateh Jang, Gujar Khan, and Rawalpindi, Mardan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and Islamabad.
Nutrition, health and food security 