Kissan Festival: ‘UAF needs 20 sub-campuses’
The University of Agriculture Faisalabad vice chancellor said on Sunday that at least 20 sub campuses of the university would be set up in the province to promote agriculture education among the residents of the rural areas. Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said these campuses would also help UAF researchers share the findings of their work with the villagers, helping them improve production. He said there were seven sub campuses of the Ludhiana Agriculture University in the Indian Punjab despite the fact that the province was one third the size of Pakistani Punjab.
Dr Iqrar was speaking at a Technology Transfer Workshop in Toba Tek Singh. The workshop was the part of the one-day Kissan Festival organised by the university.
He said sub campus in Toba Tek Singh will be upgraded into a complete university. He said Rs700 million were required to complete the construction of the new building of the campus and that it would be completed once the federal government released the amount. He thanked the United States Agency for International Development for providing Rs20 million for Toba Tek Singh sub campus.
He mentioned that citrus production in the country had seen a downfall over the last two decades. He said in 1992 Pakistan was ranked 9th among citrus producing countries in the world (in terms of output). The current ranking was 20th, he added.
He said the farmers should opt for seedless citrus (Kinow)variety as it was in demand in the international market.
Other events at the festival were: an agriculture exhibition, a kabadi match and a fancy birds’ show and a bull-cart race. Former Livestock Minister Mumtaz Minais and Pakistan Poultry Association President Dr Arshad Hanif were chief guests at the event.
Others present on the occasion were PML-N MPAs Mian Muhammad Rafiq and Ayub Gadhi and former district Nazim Chaudhry Muhammad Asfaq and Endowment Fund Executive Director Prof Dr Tahir Zahoor.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2011.
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