FAISALABAD - Most of food and crop strategies over the past years focused on yield and protection of crops but very little has been really done on breeds for high nutrition crops across the globe, having two billion nutrient deficient children. Keeping in view, we have to develop and promote high nutrient crops breeds to cope with the menace. This was stated by speakers at the inaugural session of International Conference titled Applied Genetics and Biotechnology at Video Conference Room, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. The moot was presided over by UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan while Prof Kousar A Malik from FC University, Lahore was the chief guest. The event was arranged by the Centre of Agricultural Biochemistry and Biotechnology (CABB) and the Office of Research, Innovation and Commercialization (ORIC), UAF. Addressing the gathering, Dr Iqrar said that food insecure people in Pakistan in 2010-11 were 77 million and mal-nourished people were 45m. He said the present worlds population is 7b while the worlds population by 2050 will be 9.4b. Now we have to shift our focus on producing more food keeping in view its nutrition. He said that the crop improvement through conventional breeding would not be sufficient to meet the challenges of increasing food demand due to ever-growing population. We have to adopt new technologies like Genetic Engineering and strengthen our existing crop improvement system. He said that India had made a tremendous progress in biotechnology. He said that in Pakistan we had thin manpower in the said field so tangible steps should be taken in this regard. He stressed the need for integrated modern researches with industry. Dr Kousar A Malik stressed the need for increasing the pace of work on biotechnology, as he said, that Pakistan, especially public sector is lagging far behind in the field. He said that valuable researches were being produced in the country. But, it is a matter of grave concern that a little research is being transformed into good and services. We have to work on war footings in this regard, he added. Dr Kousar called for developing a bridge between the educational institutes and the industry in a bid to increase the productivity of the country. He also urged the young scientists and students to come up with innovative ideas and narrow the gap in this regard. USDA Managing Director Dr Austar Matto from the US in his video conference address said that due to climate changes, downward trend in the production of various crops were witnessed. He said that it is a serious challenge to feed the growing population of world. He said as the one centigrade of the temperature increased, it had reduced agricultural productivity manifold. He said that nutrient deficient children were facing deficiency of Vitamin A and Iron. He said that the third world countries lost a large number of crops in post-harvest process that must be addressed. Dr Roger N Beechy talked about the better planet with the better food. He stressed the need to reduce the trend of increasing fertilizer in the country. He called for conserving the water as the global warming has started playing havoc and the water was shrinking. Prof Dr Asif Ali, Director ORIC also spoke on the occasion. Prof Dr Luca Comai from Genome Centre, US Davis, USA briefed the audience about the transgenic plants and sustainable agriculture.