Australian High Commissioner Dr Geoffrey Shaw visited the University of Agriculture Faisalabad and called on UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan and discussed the areas of mutual concern.

He also chaired deans and directors meeting, and held meeting with UAF faculty members who are Australian alumni. He appreciated the technologies of UAF and stressed upon need of commercialization in order to reach out farming community for the agriculture development. He said Pakistan and Australia have strong linkages. He said that capacity building is the area that will bring tangible changes. He said that Australia will help UAF to produce the master trainers in the field the agriculture. He said that they had conducted valuable work on fruitfly and they would help the UAF in the fruit fly action plan. Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said that the UAF had completed 16 projects with the help of the Australia meant for agricultural development and 11 Aussie projects were going on. He said that the UAF has strong collaboration with University of Western Australia and Austrian Center for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR). He said that 13 university academic staff has gained the PhDs degree from Australia and 18 got the post doctorate degree from Australia. He said that the enhanced collaboration in the agriculture sector will help fight the common challenges and get benefit from each other experiences. He said that the UAF had earmarked 13 agro ecological zones in the province of Punjab on the basis of rain fall pattern, soil fertility, water quality and availability, temperature and soil texture etc. He also said that we have to put focus on water efficient crops. He was of the view that we were far lagging behind in the cheese production. He said that we have to focus on value addition, and processing as well.