UAF VC Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan, Dr. Tariq Bucha, and Mumtaz Khan Manhais participating in the seminar

Speakers of a one day media and farmers seminar on “Challenges and opportunities in GMOs for Agriculture” urged the government for policy interventions relating to agriculture in general and promoting the biotechnology and genetically modified crops in particular to meet the challenges of food security saying that the population of this country is going to be doubled in the coming two decades putting immense pressure on the existing land and water resources. The speakers include President Farmers Associate of Pakistan Dr. Tariq Bucha, former provincial minister for livestock Mr. Mumtaz Khan Manhais, UAF VC Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan, Dr. Kausar Abdullah Malik, Prof. Bruce Alberts from University of California San Francesco termed the declaiming investment on agriculture a lamenting factor saying that whenever agriculture sector experiences declining trend due to various governance issues the whole wheal of growth becomes under tremendous pressure. The seminar, in which about 36 agriculturist journalists from across the country were participating, was arranged by Directorate of Research, Innovation and Commercialization with the curtsy of Monsanto at Video Conference Room of the University. Opening the seminar through video conferencing, Prof. Bruce Alberts emphasized to keep the science healthy as it is a torch that illuminates the world beyond the geographical distribution. Advocating the GMOs, Dr. Bruce termed the technology the only way forward to meet the food security challenges in the coming years. UAF Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan in his welcome address said that the seminar would pave a way for sharpening the understanding about GMOs and future prospectus of agriculture in the country. Describing the media a powerful tool for making awareness about various daunting challenges, asked the media persons associated with agriculture journalism to augment their efforts in highlighting the issued relating to 80% of the country’s population. He told that universities are meant for building economies, leadership and communities but the number of institutions of higher education are hard-pressed to cater the growing number of students due to limited infrastructure. He said that UAF is going to offer bachelor program of microbiology and biotechnology adding that PhD in genetics and ecology is also on the cards. Highlighting the significance of internationalization, he said that UAF is working on establishing an agricultural policy centre with the help of ACIAR. Dr. Khan told that university administration encouraging the faculty to fetch foreign-funded projects by selling their brains internationally, thus, the varisty is successfully undertaking hundreds of projects worth more than 1600 million rupees. Dr. Ahmad revealed that during the last 50 years UAF had produced around 969 PhDs adding that half of them have been produced during the last five years and considering the existing enrollment they are in position to produce 900 more PhDs during the next ten years. He vowed to establish more regional centres in the province which would complement the outreach programs. He told that the UAF scientists had developed a red rot resistant sugarcane variety and after getting government approval, that would be propagated and distributed among the farmers. Former Livestock Minister and progressive farmer Mr. Mumtaz Khan Manhais underscored the need for promoting corporate farming comprises collective farm mechanization, quality and balance input application to reduce the cost of production by promoting participatory approaches of ownership by all the participating farmers. “Assets of the farmers are dividing every passing day which need corporate farming”. He urged the agricultural journalists to highlight the significance of 350 billion US dollars’ Halal market adding that every year Saudi Arabia used to import sacrificial animals from Australia by spending more than 40 billion rupees. He expressed his dismay over burning the wheat straw of 48 billion rupees every year in the province which, he said could be made productive by making animal feed in general and silage in particular. Dr. Tariq Bucha the president of the Farmers Associates, Pakistan urged the farmers to transform their traditional agricultural practices into corporate fashion as by doing this they could arrest the raising cost of production as well as spending on land preparation and application of other inputs. He stressed the need to get pass the plant protection bill by the government as it is kept pending for the last so many years. He underscored the need for enhancing the storage capacity of the government as right now it is not more than 4.5 million ton. Dr. Kausar Abdullah Malik a veteran biotechnologist by referring the recent survey of UNICEF said that about 58 percent of the country’s population is reported to be food insecure. He told that crop related agriculture is the hardcore of food security which is all about making the food accessible, affordable and available for all people in all times. He told that around 75 of the world poor live in rural areas and associated with agriculture. He emphasized to bridge the yield gap by making tangible interventions to feed the growing population of the country. Dr. Malik while highlighting the core issued of agriculture told that today the agriculture is suffering from increasing cost of production coupled with slower adoption of technology, marketing, climate change and shrinking land holding. He asked the small farmers to join their hands and bring themselves under corporate farming though village organization, participatory approaches. Dr. Malik said that neither the industrial sector can prosperous nor the agriculture business without credit so the government need to focus the small farmers. He was of the view if the secretariat bureaucrats show firm resolve to solve the confronting challenges the whole story can be changed.