A Delegation of Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) calls on UAF Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan in his Chamber

The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) was promoting research culture in Pakistan in order to enhance selected value chains that benefit the rural poor through improved productivity market and employment opportunities. This was stated by Dr. Barbara, Team Leader ACIAR Pakistan while calling on Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan, Vice Chancellor UAF with her delegation on Tuesday. She said that purpose of ACIAR initiatives were to support analysis that improves economic and natural resource management. She added that “building the capacity of government, private and civil sectors to service the needs have stakeholders been also one of the main objectives”, she maintained. Dr. Barbara said that during baseline survey of rural areas of Sindh and Punjab provinces it was revealed that lack of credit facility, availability of inputs and inappropriate marketing were the core issues to the farming community. Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan said that UAF social sciences faculty was involved in conducting social surveys in order to provide solid ground to formulate policies at federal and provincial levels. He added that proposed policy centre at UAF Campus would become a milestone to create solid foundation for policy making. UAF VC was of the view that Internationalization was the need of hour to enhance the standards of education & research at R & D Institutions level. Dr. John Spriggs told that a baseline survey was conducted in a village of Sindh Province from Mango growers while same survey conducted in Punjab Province for dairy farmers and Citrus growers as well. He hoped that results of these surveys would become a source of better initiatives to Horticultural and Dairy Sector in Pakistan. Dr. Izhar Ahmad Khan, Dr. Babar Shahbaz and representatives of NARC Islamabad also spoke on the occasion.