ISLAMABAD: Agricultural scientists from Belarus have arrived in Islamabad to finalise and evolve a mechanism for joint venture projects in the agriculture sector.
The two countries have identified 18 areas where collaboration through the exchange of technologies will uplift the agricultural sector, focusing on farmers.
These areas include cattle breeding, research in dairy production and processing, improvement of productive qualities of beef, and veterinary vaccine development.
The visiting five-member delegation of Belarusian scientists held a meeting with the Minister for National Food Security and Research, Sahizada Mehbub Sultan, on Wednesday, and discussed implementation of these decisions under the memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries.
Pakistan Agricultural Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus will jointly execute the joint venture projects in the areas of animal sciences, farm machinery and biotechnology.
In this regard, an agreement between the two organisations is also being finalised. It may be recalled that PARC and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus have already signed a memorandum of intentions in 2015.
Since then, four sessions of this joint working group have taken place, and the fifth session will be held early in 2019.
Speaking to the delegation, Sahibzada Mehbub Sultan stated that the government wants to see the implementation of the already identified projects so as to pass on the results of technological improvements to the well-being of farmers.
He said since Belarus has ultra modern milk processing and dairy production technologies, Pakistan being one of the largest producers of milk in the world, can launch joint venture projects with Belarus.
Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2018
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