Salinity is the acute problem of Pakistan as 26 percent of the irrigated agricultural area is affected with this menace, Director General, Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Dr Muhammad Rashid told a two-day international conference on "recent techniques for abating soil and water salinity," here on Thursday. He told agricultural scientists and those from Oman and Australia in his keynote address on "management of salt affected soils and brackish water" that salinity was global problem and out of 230 million hectare irrigated land of the world, 45 million hectare was salt affected.