American Scientists Mr. Jan Dempewolf & Mr. Jon Nording (UMD) call on UAF Vice Chancellor Prof. Iqrar Ahmad khan at his chamber

A state of the art Centre of Remote Sensing for Agro Informatics would be set up at University of Agriculture Faisalabad to train the officials of crop reporting survey of the provincial government and will put its trickle down effects at farmer’s level. The announcement was made during a meeting of Mr. Jan Dempewolf Assistant Research Professor, Department of Geographical Science, University of Maryland, USA and Mr. Jon Nording (UMD) with UAF VC Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan (SI) to discuss the execution details of FAO-USDA joint project of remote sensing program here at UAF Syndicate Room on Thursday morning. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will fund the proposed centre that would be executed by FAO and University of Agriculture Faisalabad jointly. Briefing the activities of the centre, UAF VC Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan said the country experienced devastating floods during the last three years and every happening of flood has been witnessed on different places invites the researchers to investigate the climatic effects and properly forecast the masses in future by using remote sensing and other techniques adding that the centre would help the researchers and policy organs of the government for making appropriate arrangements prior to such calamities. He said the UAF faculty has enormous potential to run the centre as numerous faculty members have foreign exposure and expertise in remote sensing and climate change. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan revealed that setting up a policy centre at UAF was also on the cards by Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). He said by design UAF is offering financial assistance to the 25% students belonging to rural areas and we are looking forward to expand it to at least 40 % in the next few years. Dr. Khan said UAF remains busy in capacity building of graduates and hold various events for community building to bring prosperity in the rural areas of the country. Participating in the meeting Prof. Dr. Ashfaq Ahmad Chatha Director External Linkages said many researchers at UAF were busy in various research projects relating to remote sensing, climate change, and GIS with limited infrastructure and facilities but there was a dire need to create a window for such people to jell together and work closely with each other. He said a team of researchers was executing a project with University of Boone US with a little share of remote sensing. Besides Dr. Ashfaq Ahmad Chatha, those who attended the meeting include Prof. Allah Bakhsh, Syed Aftab Wajid, Dr. Tasneem Khaliq, Dr. Muhammad Jehanzeb Masud Cheema, Dr. Ahsan Latif and Dr. Hammad Ahmad. Later the visiting delegation inspected GIS, and Remote Sensing Labs of the University and also visited the proposed site of the centre at PARS.