First Biotech Cotton Grown in Pakistan

Biotechnology offers tremendous benefits to the agriculture in Pakistan. Agriculture biotechnology is helping today to provide people with more and better crops, food and holds even greater promise for the future. Cotton is an important cash crop for Pakistan known as ‘white gold’. It accounts for 8.2 percent of the value added in agriculture and about 3.2 percent to GDP; around two thirds of the country’s export earnings are from the cotton made-up and textiles which adds over $2.5 billion to the national economy; while hundreds of ginning factories and textile mills in the country heavily depends upon cotton. Pakistan has already surpassed the major obstacle on its way to adapting to biotechnology by enacting the Biosafety Rules in April 2005.