He visited the University of Agriculture Faisalabad on Friday and called on UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Zafar Iqbal Randhawa along with deans and directors at Syndicate Room, UAF.
He said Pakistan and Nigeria were enjoying good relations. The contribution of agriculture in Pakistan Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is around 21 percent whereas in the agriculture of Nigerian GDP, it is 23 percent. He said his country was having several agricultural universities and research institutes in which collaborations will help address common agricultural challenges and to learn from each others. Our country is a natural oil and gas producing country whereas it is blessed with the good agricultural produces. He said that collaboration especially in cotton, and textile need to be further cemented to get benefit from each other experiences. He said that UAF is very famous university and center of excellence in agriculture and played a role in the food security .
Dr Zafar Iqbal Randhawa said that UAF and Nigerian institutions collaborated work in the field of the agriculture would help bring tangible results. He said that agriculture was the backbone of our economy, and the UAF was enjoying good relations with the educational and agricultural institutions worldwide. He said that in 1960s and 1980s, several agricultural experts from Pakistan including the scientists from UAF had worked in Nigeria to boost up the sector there. He said that Pakistan was producing the surplus production in the all major crops. He said that collaborative work would bring the tangible result to increase the production and get benefit from each other experiences. The Nigerian HC also visited different labs of Horticultural Sciences, Soil Sciences and Center for Agricultural Biochemistry and Biotechnology (CABB).