Gilgit Baltistan Agriculture Minister Muhammad Kazim Masem on Tuesday said that a sub-campus of the University of Agriculture Faisalabad should be established in Gilgit Baltistan to increase agricultural productivity and produce the trained manpower there in the agriculture field.

He said that we were far lagging behind in the modern agriculture practices, value addition etc that was a matter of grave concern. He said that the in the post-harvest losses, the country was losing as many as 40 percent of its production. He added that the country can earn heavy foreign exchange by exporting agriculture goods after meeting the international standards. He said that the country was the producing one the best tastes fruits like apricot, mulberry, citrus, grapes and cherry etc but owing to non-availability of value addition, we are not getting benefit from out potential. He said the diverse climatic conditions in Gilgit-Baltistan coupled with variations in altitude has led to an equally wide array of vegetation and ecological zones. He said that they would call the UAF scientists there to collaborate with farming community and agricultural experts to make the advancement in the agricultural avenue. He invited the Vice Chancellor and experts of agriculture, horticulture, agriculture sciences, energy and others to visit GB hosted by GB government to explore the potential of GB agriculture. He said that the services of farming community were remarkable who worked day and night to provide the food for us. He also urged the University to increase GB students’ seats in the UAF admission criteria. UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asif Tanveer said that the establishment of subcampus there will prove a milestone to address the different agricultural related issues there. He said that the university is running three-sub-campuses in Okara; Burewala and Toba Tek Singh. He added that the university had given the births to diffident Universities including University of Veterinary Sciences Lahore; PMAS Arid Agriculture University Rawalpndi and Ghazi University. He said that the university was used to conduct the trainings of the different provinces farming community. Registrar Umer Saeed said that the GB students interested in the UAF admission can be admitted as the need-based manpower requirement there in the different sectors of the agriculture including value addition, crop, food sciences, livestock etc on the recommendations of GB government. Principal Officer Public Relations & Publications UAF, Prof. Dr. Jalal Arif stressed upon the need to conduct the memorandum of understandings with the GB institutions for the noble cause of uplifting the sector. He said that collaboration will help devise the roadmap of the different challenges. He also met the 40 GB students in UAF and listened their issue for the future placement. GB Deputy Director Extension Sakardu Dr Zakir Hussain, Zahid Ali Khan Deputy Director (R) Zahid Ali, Muhmamad Saleem, Sahar Abbas, UAF professor Dr Zahir Ahmad Zahir, Dr Alam Mirza, Dr Muhammad Yaseen, Dr Shahbaz Talib Sahi, Dr Qamar Bilal, Dr Cm Ayum, Dr Waseem Amjad and others attended the meeting.