59th Alumni Meet of University of Agriculture Faisalabad

Australia is eager to help Pakistani farmers raise their income and create new employment opportunities through value chain improvement and transfer of Australian knowledge and expertise to key sectors of Pakistan agribusiness aiming at increasing the profitability, poverty alleviation through collaborative research and development programs. The assertion was made by Dr Peter Horne, General Manager, Country Programs Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. He was heading an ACIAR delegation to hold talks with University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan and partnering officials to shortlist the priority areas of future collaboration under Agri Value Chain Collaborative Research Program (AVCCR) at New Syndicate Hall here on Tuesday morning Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan greeting the Australian team, thanked the Australian Government and its People for extending their assistance to Pakistani partners and hoped that such partnerships would go a long way for bringing change in the rural livings of the country. "Though the 2nd phase of Australian Sector Linkage Program (ASLP) is going to be completed in October this year but the new Agri Value Chain Collaborative Research Program (AVCCR) will benefit the stakeholders and program objectives" he hoped. He praised the Punjab Government for revamping the cattle markets that shifted the old cattle auctions in a more advanced manner aiming at benefiting both the sellers and buyers and urged the need for setting up more fruit and vegetable markets in each districts of the province. Dr Ahmad said that losses are very high in some perishable commodities in transportation and hoped that Rural Roads Program of 150 billion rupees by the Punjab Government and expansion of motorway network would change the whole landscape of communication and likely to bring more industry and business in the country. He hoped that with the help of value addition facilities in rural areas, new SMEs with plenty of employment opportunity would be created. He said that Pakistan does have the diversity to grow and produce a variety of crops in all provinces in different times and climate that need to be capitalized so that business could be promoted. Dr Ahmad said that marketing issues and lack of proper value chain are affecting both the producers and consumers. He emphasized that marketing and value addition facilities of perishable commodities were more essential to benefit the small farmers raise their income and pull them out of the exploiters clutch "there has to be a new framework of markets which do not exists due to lack of in-complete value chain or marketing limitations" he added. Dr Peter Horne said that they are underpinning a strong collaboration with UAF partners and encouraging the private sector activities to drive the value chain creating more employment opportunities. He said that research needs to be for better understanding that could become a catalyst of change. He said that they are going to shortlist the most research-able areas in value chain improvement and emphasized that we need to learn good lessons from earlier two phases of ASLP that is going to be completed in October this year and make new investment on the priority areas of making strong value chain. He said that the program would focus on three components i.e. strategic alignment, value chain features, and delivery partnership features to make it more relevant and serving the objectives. He said that after mid May, they would have to identify and shortlist the agenda to proceed for more and detailed analysis to make it more meaningful. He emphasized to identify more researchable issues to unlock the potential investment. The visiting delegation was comprising on David Preston Assistant Director Pakistan Development Section, Dr Richard Brettell ASLP Implementation Manager, Mr. Shoaib and Mr Munawar Raza Kazmi, project coordinator ACIAR.