Deputy Agriculture Counsellor, United States Embassy in Islamabad, Devid Wolf, on Saturday said Pakistan is blessed with favourable climatic conditions for agricultural productivity and can earn heavy foreign exchange by exporting it after fulfilling it demands.
He was addressing a concluding session of three-day training programme on demonstration and dissemination of irrigation techniques arranged by Water Management Research Centre (WMRC), University of Agriculture Faisalabad in collaboration with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) at a farmer gathering in village 159 GB Mongi Bangla. In the village, the university has set up fields with the latest techniques causing 25 percent of yield increase with less water.
The aim of the demonstration was to showcase the latest techniques in a bid to persuade the farming community about adoption it with the theme of "seeing believes". Devid Wolf also urged Pakistan farming community to adopt the modern trends of agriculture in order to increase productivity and end the hunger from the country.
He said that the US was providing funds to uplift the agricultural sector of the Pakistan and will continue initiatives in this regard. He said that USDA had a long history working for the development of agriculture by investing especially in the technology transfer that was vital to the way of progress.
He said that under the trilateral relations among US, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the US was improving the wheat, maize, cotton and other crops productivity in the region. He also visited the fields of wheat, cotton, maize, vegetables and tunnel farming set up by UAF and lauded the efforts aimed at maintaining food security with increased productivity.
International Centre for Agricultural Research (ICARDA) Country Manager Dr Abdul Hamid said that his company was working in 70 countries with the special focus on water as the crisis has started hitting the globe. He said that under the project funded by USDA, they were focusing on arid areas but for the cause of water, they are functioning in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , Punjab and other part of the country.
He said that they were managing USDA funded project on demonstration and dissemination of irrigation techniques. Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, UAF, Dean and WMRC Director Professor Dr Rai Niaz Ahmad said that bed planting not only increases the agricultural productivity 25 percent but also save water. Keeping in view the project was initiated to promote the technology with demonstration effects.