MART-AZR Project Research Report 14: AZRI and MART/AZR Research Plans

Abstract

The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council's (PARC) Zone Research Institute was created to fulfill three major areas of PARC 's national agricultural research strategy namely: (a) to establish and address the problems associated with the agricultural development of the arid areas of Pakistan where the potential for irrigation is either undeveloped, or does not exist, by creating an effective research capability; (b) to investigate the present technical constraints to agricultural productivity in dry areas and to design and test suitable solutions to overcome these constraints; (c) to consider the economic and social acceptability of proposed technological innovations and to develop suitable methods for the rapid and effective dissemination of new agricultural information. The attainment of these objectives has to be sought within the context of maintaining the self-sustainability of biological systems and should not impose the possibility of further environmental degradation in fragile environments.