FAISALABAD:Netherlands Ambassador to Pakistan Henny de Vries on Friday said that Pak-Netherlands relations would be further strengthened in educational and agriculture sectors to get benefit from each other experiences.
Addressing a meeting held here at University of Agriculture (UAF), she said, “We will celebrate 75 years of relationship between Pakistan and Netherlands next year. There are still several areas which we can explore including dairy, horticulture, biotechnology, potatoes seeds etc.”
She appreciated the initiatives taken by the CABI team to disseminate the advance production technology among smallholders especially women.
Speaking on the occasion, UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan stressed the need to enhance collaboration in the seed, dairy, horticulture and academia. He briefed about UAF research project on agriculture development and said that UAF was one of the leading institutes in the agricultural research and development. He said that UAF was also working to improve livelihoods of small-scale farmers by providing them updated information on advance agriculture practices. He said that main objective of the project was to build capacity of around 1000 small-level potato growers including women on advance potato production through intensive training and extension program.
UAF Dean Faculty of Agriculture Prof. Dr. Muhammad Sarwar, Director External linkages Prof Dr. Wasim Akram, Principal Officer PRP Dr Jalal Arif, Deans Dr Masood Sadiq Butt, Prof Dr Tariq Javed, Prof Dr Hassan Sarfraz, Dr Asghar Bajwa, Prof Dr Qamar Bilal, Prof. Dr. Muhammad Arshad, Project focal person UAF Dr. Ijaz Ashraf, CABI representatives, Dr. Umair Safdar (Project Manager) and others were also present on the occasion.
Later, the ambassador visited different departments of UAF along with master trainers of the RVO funded potato project.