Americans, Afghans come together at agri workshops

Seminars aimed at imparting extension skills, improving water management.

FAISALABAD: A fourth workshop on strengthening the skills of young professionals in Afghanistan and Pakistan kicked-off at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (UAF). The workshop will help strengthen participants’ extension skills in working with farmers. The trilateral workshop, which involves participants from the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan, is an outcome of an understanding between the leadership of the three countries to make agriculture an instrumental key in providing an impetus to the socioeconomic development of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Dr Jim Hill, the team leader of the trilateral workshop, said the basic philosophy behind the six-day workshop was to explore new windows of opportunities and to examine how participants can help each other in engaging both countries in productive activities. He said six US universities, including the Iowa State University, Purdue University, the University of Maryland, the Washington State University, the University of California and the US Institute of Peace (USIP).

A 10-day training workshop on on-farm water management for young professionals from Balochistan was also inaugurated at the UAF. The workshop will explore options to help convert barren lands in Baluchistan into productive units through interventions involving new techniques of irrigation.

Water Management Director Prof Dr Rai Niaz Ahmad emphasized the need of rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation and investing in solar water pumps and biogas units to make irrigation more efficient and economical. He said that half of the country’s land is barren, so we need to come up with doable action plans and make the lands productive and also focus on the Middle East and African markets.

Earlier, team leader for the trainees from Balochistan Malik Ijaz Ahmad Awan said that prior training sessions had helped trainees equip themselves with the knowledge acquired from lectures and hands-on training, which had helped agricultural production in Balochistan witness about 23% growth this year. He said that six more districts have been added to the programme to further increase yields and enable better water management at the farm level.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2013.

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