Punjab Minister for Management and Professional Development Syed Hussain Jahanian Gerdezi on Wednesday said that agro-based skilled development was vital to steer the country towards sustainable development, poverty alleviation and improvement in national economy.

He was addressing at International Symposium on global value chain power, power relations and challenges for Decent Work Agenda in Developing Countries. It was arranged by Department of Rural Sociology and Institute of Business Administration University of Agriculture Faisalabad in collaboration with International Center for Development and Decent Work (ICDD). He said that 60 percent of the populations was spending their lives below the poverty line. The country population consists of a large number of youth, he said, adding that we have to provide technical as well as professional education and training to them for a better future. In the past, we could not attract youth towards technical trainings unemployment. He added that present government had taken many initiatives to promote technical education at the national level in order to compete with the rest of world. He said that precision agriculture had taken roots for yield enhancement in the world. But we could not adopt the model. He said that unluckily, we are having a little manpower who can operate modern sophisticated agricultural machinery. There is a need to prepare a skilled manpower. He said that at the time of inception of Pakistan, we were water-intense nation. But, now we are listed as water scarce county. He said keeping in view, we have to wean off traditional irrigation methods and opt high efficient irrigation methods. UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Ashraf said that without good quality of seed, you cannot harvest economical viable crop. Most of the land of our country is under the cultivation of flawed seed that cannot produce good result. He said that in China, they had seed and cultivation regulatory mechanism to curb flawed seed and to increase productivity, He said that we have to adopt the such model. He said that Pakistan has been listed among the list of top ranked water scarce countries. It had become need of the hour to promote high-efficient irrigation agriculture. Flood watering had become outdated and we have to take the measures to replace it with other ones. Prof Cristoph Scherrer from International Center for Development and Decent Work (ICDD) said that ICDD was a global multidisciplinary network of eight partner universities on with its head office at the University of Kassel (Germany). It contributes to the global fight against hunger and poverty through research and education to promote economic growth, employment and decent work for all decent work. Dr Saira Akhtar, Chairperson, Department of Rural Society said that ICDD decent work with UAF was stated in 2009 and they had produced 70 scholars under the project so far and completed 18 projects. NAVTEC Executive Director Nasir Khan, In charge IBMS Dr Khalid Bashir, Dr Abdul Ghafor, Dr Mubashar Mehdi and other notables also spoke on the occasion. US Consul General Lahore, Colleen Crenwelge on Wednesday visited the University of Agriculture Faisalabad and called on Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Ashraf at the Meeting Room. The meeting discussed the English Access Micro Scholarship Program and the area of mutual interests. The meeting was told that a batch of 100 students of the Access English program has passed out. The meeting also discussed about launching of another batch of 150 students soon. The Vice Chancellor praised the initiatives of the US Consulate for the promotion of the education in the country. He said that English program will enable the students to hunt the scholarships abroad with the help of effective communication skills. Consulate Public Affair Minister Michael Guinan, UAF Community College Dr Haq Nawaz Bhatti, and UAF Librarian Umar Farooq also attended the meeting.