Despite having a huge potential of producing good flowers quality, Pakistan floriculture share at international market in negligible, said University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan.

Despite having a huge potential of producing good flowers quality, Pakistan floriculture share at international market in negligible, said University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan. He presided over the inaugural session of International workshop of Diversification in Floriculture organized by the Institute of Horticultural Sciences at Distance Learning Center. He said that investment in the floriculture sector can get maximum profit by making the product value-added. He said we have to choose a flower which can become our identity globally. He said that flowers are the symbol of love. The wave of hatred, and terrorism can be defeated by promoting the flowers in our lives. He said that changes in lifestyle and better standards of living had boosted up the requirement for the floriculture products. The floriculture industry will provide employment to labor at a massive scale. He stressed upon the need to promote floriculture to get the foreign exchange. He said that flower production had jacked up in many areas. John Dole from NC State University USA said that in USA floriculture, there was retail and service value was $ 31.3 billion in 2015; domestic production value was $4.4 billion; potted flower plant $810 million and cut flower $374 million. He guided the audience about the modern trends in the floriculture. Dean Faculty of Agriculture Dr Muhammad Amjad said that industry would help alleviate the poverty. He said that most of our country population was associated with the agriculture sector and poverty alleviation was directly linmked to the sector. He lamented farmers community had been using the traditional way of the farming Director Institute of Horticulture Sciences Dr Aman Ullah said that the country lacks in the cold chain of the fruits, vegetables and flowers. He also called for promoting the processing and value chain. We need to adopt the modern trends to compete with the rest of the world. Assistant Prof Dr Iftikahr Ahmad said that such seminars and collaborative workshops would help flourish this emerging segment of horticultural industry