Sino-Pak bio-health agriculture park inaugurated

Islamabad: Sino-Pak Bio health Agri­culture Overseas Sci-tech Dem­on­stration Park was inaugurated at the University of Haripur, Khyber Pakhtun­khwa last week.

The bio health agriculture park is a cooperation between the University of Haripur, Pakistan and Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University Xianyang, China. “By sharing new technologies and crop varieties, the project aims to modernize Pakistan’s agriculture, increase productivity, and lift more people out of poverty,” Dr. Abdul Ghaffar, Postdoctoral fellow at North West A & F University told Gwadar Pro. He said, the cultivation of Chinese and local high yielding varieties of different crops and vegetables remained a major area of cooperation.

The park will be constructed in three phases. In the first phase, a demonstration area will be established to plant crops with low input and high value addition. In the second phase, more will be invested in high-tech agricultural products. Joint efforts will also be made on talent training and agricultural laboratory establishment.

The third phase will focus on agricultural macro monitoring, management and big data. During the meeting, both sides agreed to extend cooperation in exchange for vegetables and other agricultural varieties through modern agricultural cooperation.

They discussed many important aspects of the development of agriculture, especially how to increase yields, the quality of vegetables, fruit and agricultural crops. The Chinese university delegation later also visited the University of Lahore to observe the field trials underway and the application of Nano biochar which proved effective in improving the yield of Okra, gourd, and eggplant.

They witnessed the research carried out including promotion of vegetable production through bio-healthy agriculture, physiological perspectives of salt tolerance in wheat, impacts of biofertilisers on salt stress tolerance and maize. Bio-health Nano fertilizers adoption and applications for sustainable and climate-resilient farming in Pakistan, production of bioactive oligosaccharides from cress seed mucilage through microbial bioprocessing was also observed.