Conference on climate change ends at AAUR

Rawalpindi :Three-day international conference on ‘Tackling Climate Change through Plant Breeding’ concluded at Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (PMAS-AAUR), here on Wednesday.

The conference was organized by the PMAS-AAUR department of Plant Breeding and Genetics (PBG) and climate change experts, PBG experts, scientists from Australia, China & Pakistan, researchers and scholars shared their experiences and presented their papers on climate change and Experts recommended that modern biotechnological tools should be used in parallel with the conventional plant breeder approaches to enhance the crop yield and quality under the scenarios of changing climatic conditions.

They emphasized on the exchange of plant genetic material among the sister universities/institutes & progressive farmers to elevate crop yield and ensure food security. They suggested that participatory plant breeding approach is needed to initiate and viable outreach program may be ensured so that material from the lab experiments may be directly tested in the farmers’ field. They also stressed on the enhancement of cooperation and coordination between plant breeders to strengthen the links between the plant breeders, bio-technologists, geneticists and scientists working on plant sciences to conserve the genetics resources and biodiversity at micro & macro levels.

Prof. Dr. Rai Niaz Ahmad Vice Chancellor PMAS-AAUR was the chief guest at the concluding session. In his address, he said Pakistan is under strong influence of climate change and is ranked number 7 in the list of most vulnerable countries, suffering economic losses of $7 to $40 billion due to climate change. He said every year about 525 human lives have been lost due to worst effect of climate change. He urged on adaptation technique to resist against the changing climate condition through plant breeding and biotechnological advancement.