Addressing the participants, acclaimed and prolific agricultural expert Mr. Asif Sharif said he was a hands on job farmer who spent years to enhance his understanding on agriculture and now he was of the view not to spend much on the production rather place a cropping system which is sustainable and ensures biodiversity. He told the participants that he was the person who introduced laser land leveling in the country and has a vigor to design ever-new farm machinery aimed at making the agriculture more precision, sustainable and profitable. He described paradoxical agriculture a science of ecosystem with less inputs and high profit “consumers are paying for farmers’ inefficiencies” he maintained.
Talking about the chemical agriculture, he said we were headstand “I am worried that how long can we sustained with such an approach” he cautioned. He was of the view that our farmers were not properly trained or guided neutrally they were given biased advice all the time by the supply companies. “Prior to 1958, all agriculture affairs were compatible with ecosystem that started deteriorating afterward” he explained. While presenting his fieldwork on multimedia, he said they produced abundant crop yield applying zero pesticides and fertilizers on raised beds without irrigation. He urged to participants who belong to officers of research wing of the government of the Punjab including DG Research Dr. Abid Mahmood and DG Extension Dr. Anjum Ali Butter, to place their attention towards transition from irrigation regime to soil moisture management that, he claimed, would cut the cost of production to manifold. He said the new paradoxical agriculture system does not require ploughing as the crop residue management paves to keep the soil moist for new crop.
Mr. Asif Sharif told that he had introduced an initiative One Acre Prosperity (OAP) that, he believes, would enable the farmer to easily earn more than 600,000/- profit per year without investing on input side. While rejecting the philosophy of more yield, he maintained that the same amount of yield could be obtained by practicing the paradoxical agriculture that is organic and natural. UAF Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Muhammad Ashraf (HI) while referring a Chinese philosophy of bio-healthy agriculture said an average landholding is not more than six kanals but they are earning a huge sum of profit by erecting two tunnels and applying vermi-compost as fertilizer. He said today all new cropping models are stressing upon conserving the biodiversity that ensures soil, crop and human health. Highlighting the story of his outreach activity with Water Manager Research Center (WMRC) team in the outskirts of the town, he told that his team did a raise bed intervention for carrot cultivation on four acres of land of a farmer who sold his 3-month crop against 1.6 million rupees. He told the surrounding farmers were vigorous that they would adopt the same raise bed technology for carrot in future. Dr. Mahmood Ahmad from LUMS endorsed the idea of paradoxical agriculture and said they calculated cost-benefit ratio and did a comparison between chemical and paradoxical agriculture that concludes an investment of 84 and 36 rupees against an income of Rs. 100 respectively in both approaches. DG Agriculture Extension Dr. Anjum Ali Butter, Director ORIC, Dr. Zahir Ahmad Zahir, and Deputy Director ORIC Dr. Abdul Rasheed Malik also spoke on the occasion.