Barren fields, children dropping out from schools, rising debts, agony and hopelessness was all that Pakistan's local farmer Ghulam Sarwar had in his miserable life.
That was until the Chinese government helped him grow healthy and high yielding banana plants that finally saw his fortunes turn and made him a happy family man within a couple of years.
Sarwar, a 41-year-old farmer from the Tando Allahyar district of Pakistan's southern Sindh province, was a fairly well-off farmer with 3 acres of land (1.214 hectares) until 2009 when the "bunchy top virus" devastated his banana fields and made it hard for him to feed his own family.
"It was worst time of my life, I spent all my savings in one year and borrowed more. I could see only darkness everywhere," Sarwar told Xinhua. "That was until 500 free plants of a Chinese banana variety 'William-8818' brought me out of suffering and financial crisis and reenergized and entirely changed my life,"
Sarwar was among the thousands of Pakistanis who lost their means of earnings after the viral disease destroyed more than half of 85,992 acres of land used for banana cultivation in Pakistan, according to official statistics.
Senior Director at the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) Abdul Ghafoor said, "In 2009, China and Pakistan launched the Pak-China Cooperation for Agricultural Research and Development, a joint venture with 255.712 million rupees (2.452 million U.S. dollars) to maximize the productivity per unit of land in six fields, including cotton, banana, oil seeds, maize, sugarcane and efficient irrigation systems."
"The main purpose of the project is to achieve food security, poverty reduction, economic efficiency, export competitiveness, human resource development, production and promotion of hybrid seeds in collaboration with Chinese experts," said Ghafoor, who heads the project that was due to end in June but will be extended to 2018.
The germplasm (seeds or tissues) or crops acquired from China have successfully passed trials at different areas of Pakistan and the hybrid seeds have been distributed among poor farmers, with the support of the Chinese team led by Ye Wei from the Hubei Seed Group of China.
During the past two years, at least 130,000 banana plants of three different Chinese varieties, William-8818, Brazilian and Pisang, have been distributed among the farmers, especially in Sindh, which accounts for 87 percent of Pakistan's total banana cultivation. Under the project, an agriculture lab in the Thatta district of Sindh has also been upgraded to 200,000 plants annually to facilitate the local banana production.
