ASLP delegation Visits UAF

Pakistan should export mangoes to neighboring country India by road in a bid to earn foreign exchange and get the share of our produces in Indian markets. This was stated by UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan while talking to an Australian delegation from Agriculture Sector Linkage Programme at his chamber on Friday. The delegation comprised Senior Principal Horticulturist Peter Hofman and Dr Tim Sun from University of Queensland. He said that India was a big market and it population crossing one billion people. As many as 300 million people are belonging to middle class, more than whole European population to whom Pakistan fruit could be sold. He said that earlier we imported trucks of tomatoes from India. The same trucks could be used to export the mangoes and citrus to India as mango has a less shelf life. He said in Pakistan, the area under mango cultivation is 167.5 thousand hectares with a production of 1,732 thousand tones being the second major fruit crop of Pakistan after citrus. He also stressed the need to set up national policy centre at the UAF in order to providing experts opinions to the policy makers for addressing the national issues especially in the field of agriculture. Talking about university, he around 20,000 students were studying at the campus while the number was only 900 in 1961 when the college was elevated to university. Dr Tim Sun said that University of Agriculture in China has set up policy centre that provides recommendation to the Government of China in all issues of agriculture that helps in boosting up the Industry. He said that recommendations also helped in maintaining balance of trade in their favour. He said that Pakistan was producing good mangoes. Peter Hofman said ASLP is aimed at enhancing value chains that benefits the rural poor through improved productivity, market and employment opportunities. It is also working on building the capacity of government, private and civil sectors to service the needs of stakeholders. Institute of Horticulture Director Prof Dr Amjad Aulak, Prof of Post Harvest Techniques Prof Dr Amanullah Malik and Institute of Business Management Sciences Director Prof Dr Khalid Mustafa also spoke on the occasion