US-Pakistan universities partnership critical to revolutionize agriculture sector: Sardar Masood Khan

WASHINGTON, Dec 07, (SABAH): “The recent momentum in Pakistan-US relations has provided an opportunity to further strengthen Pak-US cooperation in agriculture sector”. Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Sardar Muhammad Masood Khan made these remarks during his meeting with Professor Matthew Hansen, Head of Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland.

Ambassador Sardar Masood Khan discussed potential areas of cooperation between the agriculture universities of both Pakistan and the United States and interventions needed to optimize agricultural yields through introduction of weather resistant and climate resilient seeds.

The Ambassador underlined the need for more research on GMO as well as food and cash crops. He requested Professor Hansen to help develop university to university partnerships to carry out a research on advanced crop monitoring in Pakistan.

Professor Hansen said that through a project titled “Global Agricultural Monitoring (GLAM) Project” funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, the University of Maryland had provided technical assistance to build capacity of Pakistani statisticians in application of remote sensing in crop area estimation. Under the project, the University of Maryland launched research to estimate wheat yield, and subsequently build the capacity of relevant Pakistani institutions.

Professor Hansen said that he was already engaged with Dr. Iqrar Ahmed, Vice Chancellor of University of Agriculture Faisalabad and welcomed the collaboration between the two universities. He plans to discuss this in detail during his visit to Pakistan in January 2023.

Ambassador Sardar Masood Khan thanked Professor Hansen for his support and valuable partnership, and assured him of the Government f Pakistan’s continued support in building linkages between Pakistan’s universities with the University of Maryland.