News
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Pakistan and US agree to promote agriculture sector* Pak-US Strategic Dialogue on Agriculture identifies areas for cooperation including crop productivity enhancement, plant diseases, dairy development, market access for Pak products
By Iqbal Choudhry
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the US on Tuesday agreed on strengthening collaborative research and broadening the private sector support to achieve economic growth in the agriculture sector.
The third meeting of the Strategic Dialogue on Agriculture under the Pak-US Strategic Dialogue framework was held in Islamabad. According to the meeting’s deliberations, it was agreed that both sides will continue to modernise Pakistan’s agricultural sector to ensure an adequate supply of food items, foster a faster economic growth, alleviate poverty and enhance rural employment.
Cooperation: The areas identified for future cooperation include crop productivity enhancement, particularly in wheat and cotton, animal and plant diseases, dairy development, horticulture, market access for Pakistani products including mangoes, and capacity building in SPS issues as well as various other areas of research development and extension and water management.
The last meeting of the Agriculture Track was held in Washington in March 2010, after agriculture was added as a separate track in the 2nd round of Strategic Dialogue in 2007. Since then, two meetings of the track have been held so far.
Ministry of Food and Agriculture Secretary Junaid Iqbal led the Pakistani side, assisted by Malik Zahoor Ahmad, Chair / Chief Coordinator of the Strategic Dialogue Secretariat. The US delegation was co-chaired by Darci Vetter, Deputy Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, US Department of Agriculture and James Bever, Assistant Administrator of USAID. The bilateral cooperation in agriculture has enabled Pakistan to successfully address its past food security issues.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk