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PARC-Southern-zone Agricultural Research Centre (PARC-SARC), Karachi is the 2nd largest research establishments of PARC with its headquarters within the premises of the University of Karachi. The Centre is headed by a Director General, who is assisted by the institute directors. The focus of PARC-SARC is to undertake research on specialized disciplines of national and regional importance related to food safety, productivity enhancement in grain storage, quality control, pest control management, crop diseases, vertebrate pest control, plant introduction, horticulture & sugarcane research, arid horticulture, saline agriculture, natural resources, water management and social sciences. After PARC became an autonomous body in 1978, research units i.e. Radio Isotopes Laboratory, Food Section, Crop Disease Research Institute, Plant Introduction Centre, Vertebrate Pest Control Laboratory, National Insect Museum, Mycological Herbarium, and the Locust and Grasshoppers Research Laboratory earlier transferred from the Department of Plant Protection to the Agricultural Research Council were shifted to PARC along with their staff. During the reorganization phase from 1982 to 1987, the Radio Isotope Laboratory, Mycological Section, and Food Section were merged and placed under the Grain Storage Research Laboratory. Other units, including Locust and Grasshoppers Research Laboratory, Vertebrate Pest Control Laboratory and Plant Introduction Centre were strengthened to function independently under the Crop Sciences Division of PARC. In 1985, all these units were placed under an Officer-in-Charge to improve administrative coordination. In 1998, these institutes were brought under a single directorate named the Pest Management Research Institute (PMRI) at the University of Karachi campus. The Plant Protection Research Institute and Grain Storage Research Institute were also shifted there from Malir, Karachi. The University of Karachi provided land and facilities to support this consolidation. PMRI was later renamed the Tropical Agricultural Research Institute (TARI). With the expansion of research activities, TARI was upgraded to the Tropical Agricultural Research Centre (TARC) in 1995 and renamed the Southern-zone Agricultural Research Centre (SARC) in 2002. New components were added over time, strengthened SARC’s multidisciplinary research mandate. The R&D scope of PARC-SARC ranges from problem-oriented research to provision of analytical and advisory service on specific issues in agriculture sector. Following are the major areas of current research at the Centre:
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