PESHAWAR: “The Impact of Climate Change on Horticulture Crops in KPK and Way Forward,” a webinar hosted by the Pakistan Horticulture Development & Export Company (PHDEC), was educational. The fact that growers, processors, researchers, and academics made up the diverse audience at the event highlighted how urgent it is for the horticultural industry to confront climate change.
The World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) jointly conducted a study that revealed Pakistan would suffer annual economic losses of up to $3.8 billion as a result of climate change. This led to the organization of the webinar. The northern regions, which include cities like Lahore and Peshawar, are especially vulnerable as temperatures are expected to climb by up to 2.5 degrees Celsius over the next 20 years.
The keynote speaker, Dr. Ibrar Hussain, Senior Research Officer at ARI Tarnab, Peshawar, gave a thorough review of the unique effects of climate change on horticultural crops in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Dr. Hussain listed the main dangers, which include erratic rainfall patterns, an increase in droughts, rising temperatures, and an increase in the frequency of severe weather occurrences. He underlined that these elements play a major role in the region’s agricultural failures and animal losses.
