Australian High Commissioner for commercialization of technologies to ensure food security

Faisalabad: Australian High Commissioner Dr Geoffrey Shaw said on Tuesday that commercialization of technologies was imperative to give a quantum jump to agriculture yield and making Pakistan a self-reliant country in addition to ensuring food security.

He was addressing a meeting here at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF). He appreciated the technologies of UAF and stressed the need for commercialization in order to reach out farming community for the agriculture development.

He said Pakistan and Australia had strong linkages, adding that capacity

building was the area that would bring tangible changes. He said that Australia would help UAF to produce master trainers in the field of agriculture. He said that they had conducted valuable work on fruit-fly and they would help the UAF in the fruit fly action plan.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said the UAF had completed 16 projects with the help of Australia meant for agricultural development and 11 Aussie projects were still going on.

He said the UAF had strong collaboration with University of Western Australia and Austrian Center for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR). He said that 13 university academic staff had gained the PhDs degree from Australia and 18 got the post doctorate degree from Australia.

He said that enhanced collaboration in the agriculture sector would help fight the common challenges and get benefit from each other experiences.

Dr Iqrar said the UAF had earmarked 13 agro-ecological zones in Punjab on the basis of rain fall pattern,soil fertility, water quality and availability, temperature and soil texture etc.

He said, “We have to put focus on water efficient crops”. He was of the view that Pakistan was far lagging behind in the cheese production. “We have to focus on value addition, and processing as well”, he added.

ACIAR Country Manager Dr Munawar Kazmi said that they focuses on agribusiness, mangoes and citrus, livestock, agricultural policy, horticulture and agricultural water management. He said that different Aussie projects which were conducted at UAF were being up scaling up across the country. He added that agri tourism must be promoted for the agriculture development.

Dr Saddiq Qadambot from University of Western Australia said that they started collaboration with UAF ten years ago and the UAF had been contributing remarkable contribution in agri uplift.

Earlier, the High Commissioner called on UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan and discussed the areas of mutual interest. He also chaired deans and directors meeting, and held meeting with UAF faculty members who were Australian alumni.

Director Horticulture Dr Aman Ullah Malik also spoke on the occasion.

The High Commissioner also visited the different Australian research projects stall and planted a sapling.