Agriculture and rural development is directly linked to poverty alleviation and the promotion of modern trends in agriculture sector will not only help ensure the food but also alleviate hunger, said UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan.

Agriculture and rural development is directly linked to poverty alleviation and the promotion of modern trends in agriculture sector will not only help ensure the food but also alleviate hunger, said UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan. He was talking to a delegation of National Institute of Banking and Finance Islamabad. The delegation was led by Shahid Iqbal from NIBAF and Abid Hameed Piracha from State Bank of Pakistan He said lack of awareness and financial constraints were barring the farming community to adopt the modern trends. He also called for increasing the loans for the farming community. He said that climate changes provoke heavy floods, shrinking water resources and weather changes that are responsible for a loss of billions of rupees to the national economy. He said that farming community could face cut their income due to low productivity if we don’t take adaptive measures. He said that public awareness, and joint effort on the part of all stakeholders were essential to fight the challenges. He said that we are destroying the world with our own hands, due to deforestation and increasing pollution. Talking to participants the Vice Chancellor showed his concern that the forest net in the country was only 2.5 percent compared to the international standards of 25 percent. He said it is really disturbing that instead of increment in our forest net, it is decreasing with each passing day.