Lt. General Muhammad Asghar (retd) visited University of Agriculture Faisalabad to discussed cooperation in agriculture under CPEC
Faisalabad: (Nasir Abbas): Member China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Higher education Commission Lt. General Muhammad Asghar (retd) visited University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) and held meeting with UAF Vice Chancellor Professsor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan in his chamber. Matters relating to CPEC, agricultural development, yield enhancement and possibilities of cooperation in the field of agriculture under CPEC came under discussion. During visit of exhibition staged at Expo Center of the university, Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan highlighted the latest Research and Development (R&D) activities of the varsity and emphasized that immediate attention should be given to the application of technology for forecasting and decision support systems. He said that soybean experiments offered a wide range of data to devise a Climate Smart Agriculture platform. Responding to a question, he maintained that wheat yields remained stagnant for several years due to temperature spikes/terminal heat causing poor grain filling that was reversed during the last harvest because of favorable weather. He underscored the need of introduction of heat tolerant varieties thereby breaking the wheat yield stagnation and arresting the US $10 billion import of essential commodities. By doing this only, he anticipated, “we would reduce the area under wheat and allow the expansion of cultivated area under early cotton, oilseeds, pulses, and soybean.” In addition to yield and disease resistance, it is important to breed wheat for nutritional value (protein, zinc/ iron fortified wheat), he added. Muhammad Asghar appreciated the UAF achievements and anticipated that work started at UAF would yield sweet fruits and bring robust change in the socioeconomic development of the country.
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