FAISALABAD – An Australian delegation from Agriculture Sector Linkage Programme visited the University of Agriculture and praised the quality of Pakistani mangoes.
The delegation comprised Senior Principal Horticulturist Peter Hofman  and Dr Tim Sun from University of Queensland.
Dr Tim Sun said that University of Agriculture in China has set up a policy centre which provides recommendation to the Government of China in all issues of agriculture and helps boost up the Industry. He said that recommendations also helped in maintaining balance of trade in their favour.  He said that Pakistan was producing good mangoes.  Peter Hofman said ASLP is aimed at enhancing value chains that benefits the villagers through improved productivity, market and employment opportunities. It is also working on building the capacity of government, private and civil sectors to service the needs of stakeholders.
UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan on the occasion said Pakistan should export mangoes to neighbouring country India by road in a bid to earn foreign exchange and get the share of our produces in Indian markets. He added that India is a big market and it population crossing one billion people. As many as 300 million people belong to middle class, more than whole European population to whom Pakistani fruit could be sold, adding that earlier we imported trucks of tomatoes from India. The same trucks could be used to export the mangoes and citrus to India as mango has a less shelf life, he said.
He maintained that in Pakistan, the area under mango cultivation is 167.5 thousand hectares with a production of 1,732 thousand tones being the second major fruit crop of Pakistan after citrus.  He also stressed the need to set up national policy centre at the UAF in order to providing experts opinions to the policy makers for addressing the national issues especially in the field of agriculture.
Talking about the university, he said around 20,000 students were studying at the campus while the number was only 900 in 1961 when the college was elevated to university.
Institute of Horticulture Director Prof Dr Amjad Aulak, Prof of Post Harvest Techniques Prof Dr Amanullah Malik and Institute of Business Management Sciences Director Prof Dr Khalid Mustafa also spoke on the occasion.