The lack of agricultural machinery, implements and skilled manpower is hammering the process of agricultural uplift in the country, said University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan.

The lack of agricultural machinery, implements and skilled manpower is hammering the process of agricultural uplift in the country, said University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan. He was addressing a seminar on tractor parts at UAF Iqbal Auditorium arranged by WazirPak Group ATS and UAF. He said that farmers don’t have sophisticated machinery even for five major crops. He urged the developers to introduce efficient and low cost farm machinery not only to increase the productivity but to facilitate the farming community. He said that horse powers of tractors are underutilized due to lack of trained manpower who are running the tractors. He said that available planters and harvesters in the country had become outdated. He also said that reverse engineering of imported farm machinery will help in manufacturing low cost and durable machinery at local level. He said that in the modern era, it has become need of the hour to adopt the state-of-the-art tools to increase productivity amid increasing population. He said that farmers must be trained how to use the machinery in order to ensure its efficiency. He said that we have 1.2 million tubewells only in Punjab and only 0.2 million of them are being operated on electricity. The half of the rest of them is being run through tubewells that is the wastage of energy and termed it inefficient use of 55 horse power tractor. Chairman WazirPak Group ATS Amjad Wazir said that India per acre productivity was more than Pakistan due to usage of the sophisticated machinery. He lauded UAF role in the uplift of agricultural sector as it is mother of all agri educational institution in the subcontinents. He said that his company is developing the tractor engine, generator and other automats of the international level that are being exported to 32 countries of the globe. ATS Chairmen Mohsin Magsi, Rehan Shiekh; Tractor Cooperation Sohail Imtiaz and ATS Manager Usman Butt and other notables also spoke on the occasion.