He was chairing a meeting of the UAF deans and directors at the Syndicate Room, UAF. Dr Muhammad Ashraf gave the briefing about the university’s contributions in the education, science, technology, and agriculture sectors. The minister showed his concern that access to good seed was the major problem for farming community as markets were having abundant inflicted seed which was hampering to gain the good results in the sector. He said that poor quality of pesticides was also one of major hindrance to reach potential. He said that university should devise standards of seeds and pesticides that will be implemented across the country.
He concerned that every province, food authorities were having their own standards that need to be uniformed. He said that keeping in view, harmonized national food policy would be mapped out with the help of food experts from UAF.
He said that Muslim world is eyeing on Pakistan to take the lead in science and technology. He said many countries including Korea, Malaysia, India and others who got independence with Pakistan were excelling in the area of science and technology. But we could not get the due advancement in the sectors, he said, adding that we have to take concrete measures to become knowledge economy. He said that in 60s we developed rockets and at that time we were inching away from Soviet Union but after that we could not compete with the rest of the world in science and technology. He said that October 2 will be declared as the science and technology day in connection with birth anniversary of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. He said that the government has allocated record budget of Rs 43 billion for the science and technology. He said that the sciences fair will be staged in coming months in order to showcase and flourish innovative ideas, technology in the country. He said that they would invite the applications from the people from July 15 in this regard and the participants in this fair will be provided intellectual property rights for commercialization.
He said that every citizen has to play a role in the plantations Green and Clean Pakistan. He said that women in KPK was also taking part in the plantation drive and they had developed nurseries in their lands or homes also. It is not only increasing their income but also boosting up area under green in the country. Dr Muhammad Ashraf said that university has developed ten patients technologies. He said that university was the topped ranked in the research productivity awards. He said that university had taken up the issue of the development of climate resilient seeds and development of small machinery for the food security and increasing per acre production. He said decreasing fertility and agricultural land, we need to adopt modern trends in agriculture sector to tackle situation effectively. He said that the smart agriculture machinery was vital to be developed at the national level for small farmers. He said that more than 90 percent of the farming community consists of small farmers who cannot afford cost-intensive machinery. The situation provokes the low productivity. In China, even every small farmer has become a user of mechanization for this agricultural land. They have developed small machinery for small farmers with reverse engineering, enabling them to get machinery at affordable prices. Value addition, which is capable of earning heavy foreign exchange, is critical missing link in our agriculture trade. The Minister along with Vice Chancellor visited the different labs including Horticulture; Soil Sciences and Food Sciences.