November 01, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 19, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) desires to work with the Pakistan ministry of food, agriculture and livestock (Minfal) for the promotion of plant and livestock research and export of irradiated vegetables to the American market.

After the European Union (EU) and Russia banned import of some of its agricultural products, Pakistan is faced with the challenge of exploring the US market for its vegetables as an alternative. But, the country is allowed to export only irradiated vegetables to the US for which Pakistan lacks capacity and needs a lot of assistance from the US.

A high-level US delegation comprising Caird Rexroad, associate administrator USDA and Margaret Thursland, agricultural counsellor in US embassy in Pakistan, called on Dr M E Tusneem, chairman Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (Parc) on Wednesday and discussed with him the prospects of future collaboration between the two countries in the field of agricultural research, particularly export of irradiated vegetables.

Dr Tusneem briefed the delegation on the various activities being carried out at the Parc and its collaborative activities with international agencies.

Mr Caird said the US would provide assistance to Pakistan in building human resources capacity in the field of agricultural research with emphasis on biotechnology, bio-safety, bio-security, climate change, agriculture policy analysis and international trade, strengthening of animal and plant health services and export of irradiated fruits and vegetables to US.

The Parc chairman informed the US delegation that pests and diseases, declining farm profitability and degradation of natural resources base, including land, water and forests, coupled with high population growth are now posing threat to food security and environmental sustainability of the current production system.

He said that emerging challenges, global warming, climate change, diversification into high-value agriculture, food safety and competitiveness of farm products in international markets needed to be addressed to make agriculture productive, profitable, competitive and sustainable.

Dr Tusneem informed the delegation about the success of Agricultural Linkages Programme (ALP) and proposed to build on the existing excellent cooperation between the concerned departments of Pakistan and US.

He further said that Pakistan was moving towards diversification into high value agriculture, value addition, especially in livestock and horticulture crops and to enhance the productivity by narrowing yield gap.

The Parc chief said that high-efficiency irrigation system and other water-saving technologies, demand driven research for new technologies and innovations, ensuring fair price to farmers, improve market access and infrastructure was imperative to boost agriculture sector.

The officials of both the countries identified the areas for future collaboration, which include plant protection, social sciences, animal sciences, natural resources and training of social scientists in the field of trade and agriculture research and development. Later, the delegation visited animal sciences institute, grain quality testing laboratory, green houses for wheat nurseries, and the biotechnology laboratory, gene bank at plant genetic and racers institute and geo-informatics lab at water resources institute of the National Agri-cultural Research Council (Narc).