Glimpses of Spring Festival being observed at University of Agriculture Faisalabad

The issue of food poisoning, which is responsible for many casualties in developing countries, can be minimized through adoption of value-addition and food engineering tools that will not only reduce post-harvest losses and malnutrition affects but also fulfill the food demand of ever-growing population of the country. This was stated by experts on Friday at an International Seminar titled “Food Engineering” arranged by the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, at New Senate Hall in connection with its ongoing six-day Spring Festival aimed at providing a platform to farming community and other stakeholder to interact with experts in order to increase per acre agrarian productivity. The session was presided over by UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan while National Textile University Rector Prof Dr Niaz Ahmad, Dr Yuz Aniza and Dr Muhamamd Noor ud Din from University of Putra, Malaysia (UPM), Science and Technology University Bannu Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asmat Ali, Faisalabad University Pro Reactor Abdul Karim Baloch and PARB Executive Member Dr Rafique ur Rehman were guests of honour on the occasion. Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said the university had launched new 15 degree programmes in the span of four years, raising the number to total programmes at 80 at the campus. He said that the food engineering was the need-based degree programme to cater the need of food engineers as food industry is expanding rapidly. “It was a matter of concern that no institution was offering Food Engineering Degree in the country previously, so we took initiative in this regard” he added. The Vice chancellor said that the country was facing wastage of 40 percent post-harvest losses. By the utilization of value addition, we can overcome it, he added. Prof Dr Niaz Ahmad congratulated the UAF for launching Food Engineering Degree Programme, ever first time in the history of the country, that would prove a hallmark in value addition and providing sufficient food to the country as Pakistan was under the grip of food insecurity and malnutrition. He said that launching of the new degree Program will give a direction to other educational institutes to work on it and kick off similar programmes in a bid to provide trained manpower to fulfill the need of food industry. He stressed the need to develop curriculum keeping in view the international standards with the emphasis on basic sciences, engineering designs and sciences respectively. Dr Yuz Aniza said that the UPM was collaborating with the UAF in the development of curricula for the said degree programme keeping in view international standards. She also highlighted main feature of curricula and other functions of her university. Dr Rafique ur Rehman said that according to Global Gap 2011, as many as 112,000 companies has been registered globally but our country is having only 52 global GAP registered companies in 2010. The small number was question mark on the value addition services and was hindrance to flourish on the horizon of agriculture at world level. He stressed the need to step up efforts in this regard. Faculty of Agricultural Engineering Dean Prof Dr Rai Niaz said that only four percent of the total milk production is being processed as Pakistan was one of the biggest producers of milk. He said we had to work on war footing to increase the capacity to process all available milk in the country. He said that Pakistan is blessed with four seasons and best climate but we are still lagging behind in agriculture due to lack of food engineering, value chain and tradition way of farming. Department of Farm Machinery Chairman Prof Dr Iqbal said that UAF had a lead in the field of agriculture and working to catering the need of agricultural experts in the country. He said that food processing was giving the jobs to 16 percent of pollution. He said that they had set up state-of-the-art CAD and CAM lab to give the training to the engineers.