Turkey To Get To Work Immediately

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 27 (Bernama) -- Turkey is not keen to use nuclear technology for seed production as other conventional and scientific methods can still be as effective, its Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Mehmet Mehdi Eker, said today.

Speaking to Bernama on the sidelines of the three-day Developing Eight (D8) Ministers' Meeting on Food Security conference here, he believed that there were sufficient manpower and scientific knowledge and resources in the member countries to carry out research and development in the production of high yielding, disease-resistant seeds for various crops using time-tested methods.

"So the use of nuclear energy is not necessary for now due to various adverse effects", he said, referring to an earlier proposal by a member country to use nuclear technology for seed production.

The D8 meeting, which entered its final day today, had appointed Turkey and Iran to be the prime movers in the field of seed production.

Mehmet said his country was "all fired up" to start work on the project and it was expected to hold the first workshop among member countries in Ankara by April.

The meeting earlier agreed to give the prime mover countries six months to begin their respective projects.

Other prime movers were Malaysia and Indonesia for animal feed and Egypt for fertilisers.

Mehmet said he would immediately ask his ministry to collect data on the number of research facilities, manpower and capability of each member country to facilitate the deliberations at the workshop.

The countries that make up the D8 are Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Nigeria.

-- BERNAMA