Development of agriculture sector: government appreciates role of electronic and print media: chairman PARC

Federal Government appreciates the role of Electronic & Print Media towards development of agriculture sector. An awareness campaign to introduce new technologies, new innovations and new crop species is going to be started in all Provinces including Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir.
Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) has conducted an Exposure Visit of Electronic and Print Media of Islamabad and Rawalpindi to National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) Islamabad on Thursday to acquaint the media about agri-research and development activities being carried out at NARC and its Research Institutes / Laboratories / Field farm area to disseminate these R&D activities, new interventions and latest information among stakeholders through media. This campaign has been initiated under "Advocacy and Projection of PARC R&D activities to the Stakeholders and in Electronic and Print Media project.
Chairman PARC Dr Nadeem Amjad gave an overview about PARC and its Research Institutes working across the country for the promotion and development of agriculture sector in Pakistan. He appreciated the support of media to PARC / NARC, whenever required, and to disseminate their research and new knowledge to farming community in the country.
Director General, NARC Dr Muhammad Azeem Khan gave a detail presentation about NARC its main functions and services, 19 different Research Institutes doing research on various disciplines of agriculture including livestock, poultry and fisheries. He briefed the media about on-going research activities of the NARC and its achievements.
DG (PR and Protocol) PARC Sardar Ghulam Mustafa also spoke on the occasion and highlighted the objective of the exposure visit arranged for the media.
The media also conducted a field visit to NARC Agricultural and Biological Engineering Institute (ABEI) where a number of farm machines were displayed. DG NARC and Principal Engineer Shabbir A Kalwar briefed the media about various new farm machinery including olive extraction machine, wheat straw chopper, sisal decorticator with practical orientation and solar technology to dry fruit and vegetables for manufacturing value added products. After this they visited Horticulture Research Institute where different plants were shown to the media which include root stocks of different fruit plants, mother plants, olive plants, olive air laying technology, fruit plants pruning practical demonstration and green houses and on-going research work on different fruits plants. The media also visited vegetable experimental area where a number of vegetable nurseries for summer vegetables were ready. The vegetable programme of NARC has established over 310 vegetable clubs in Rawalpindi and Islamabad area to provide fresh and pesticides free vegetable at household level, added by Dr Ghulam Jillani, Taj Naseeb Khan and Dr Sadeer.
By visiting a short farm field area of NARC and seeing R&D activities and interventions, the media was very much impressed about the performance of NARC.
They showed their interest and asked the DG NARC to plan such more exposure visits for them to visit all NARC Research Institutes to see the research work being carried out there and new interventions being developed for further dissemination among end-users.-PR