20,000 students to join farmers in wheat drive

Nine-day visits to fields in five divisions begin today

LAHORE:

As many as 20,000 students of the University of Agriculture Faisalabad will leave on Friday for nine-day visits to fields in five divisions of the province in order to inform farmers about new research and technology for increasing the per acre production of wheat.

The students will travel with the Punjab Agriculture Extension Department officials and staff during the provincial government’s wheat campaign.

UAF Vice Chancellor Professor Iqrar Ahmad Khan said while presiding over a meeting about the wheat campaign that the students will travel with the officials in Gujranwala, Lahore, Sargodha, Faisalabad and Sahiwal divisions to update the farming community about the latest agricultural trends, practices and research.

He said that in 2008-09, Pakistan imported three million tonnes of wheat. After that, the UAF students went from village to village under a wheat campaign and informed the farmers about the latest methods. The initiative resulted in wheat production rate of up to five million tonnes in 2010.

The vice chancellor said progressive farmers were gaining significantly higher yield of the crop than the country’s average wheat yield per acre.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2021.