Nigerian HC for boosting agricultural ties

FAISALABAD: Nigerian High Commissioner Ashimiyu A Olaniyi has stressed upon the need to further strengthening agricultural, academia, and research ties between both countries to ensure food security and rural development.

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 that Pakistan and Nigeria were enjoying good relations. The contribution of agriculture in Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was around 21 per cent whereas in the agriculture of Nigerian GDP, it was 23 per cent, he told. He said that his country had several agricultural universities and research institutes in which collaborations would help address common agricultural challenges and to learn from each other.

Our country was a natural oil and gas producing country whereas it was blessed with good agricultural produces, he maintained. He said that collaboration especially in cotton and textile need to be further cemented to get benefit from each other experiences.

He said that the UAF was a famous university and centre of excellence in agriculture and it was playing a vital role in food security. Dr Zafar Iqbal Randhawa said that the 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 Pakistan was producing 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. Later, the Nigerian HC also visited different labs of Horticultural Sciences, Soil Sciences and Centre for Agricultural Biochemistry and Biotechnology (CABB).