National Productivity Organization (NPO), Pakistan has organized a five-day workshop in partnership with the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) Japan to improve productivity in the agriculture sector of Pakistan in Islamabad.
The objective of the workshop was to familiarize the latest innovative trends, technologies and branding techniques used globally for value-added agriculture sector towards participants.
International experts from Malaysia and Sri Lanka along with renowned local experts having decades of experience in agriculture sector came to conduct the workshop, share their experiences and inculcate knowledge to the participants. 17 participants from nine countries and 10 local participants are attending the workshop.
CEO NPO Abdul Ghaffar Khattak appreciated efforts of the Asian Productivity Organization, Japan, which has been working for productivity enhancement in the Asia Pacific since 1961 in his welcome address of workshop.
He highlighted smart transformation initiatives of APO for agriculture, industry and service sectors in its member economies. The APO has conducted numerous projects for the development of agriculture sector in its member countries.
He talked about development of Smart Agricultural Transformation Framework (ATF) for the APO Member economies which aimed to serve as a useful reference and enable member countries to take the next step and develop their country specific ATF.
The availability of critical natural resources such as land and water for agricultural and food production has been decreasing at a steady pace in most APO member countries.
This widening gap between food demand and the natural resources available to support agriculture, climate change and extreme weather conditions, and social issues like changing rural demographics and aging populations pose a serious threat to future food security.
It is essential for policymakers and planners, farmers, and businesses to use modern technologies at all levels for smart agriculture processes and management. Agriculture could be transformed into a future proof industry including productive, sustainable food value chains by using technology as a sustainable scalable resource.
Abdul Ghaffar Khattak said NPO Pakistan is playing a pivotal role in institutional capacity building on productivity. Major challenges faced by Pakistan are lack of knowledge of the links between productivity tools, techniques and real-world problems at the firm level, minimum exposure to the latest information on organizational management techniques for increasing productivity at the micro-organizational level, and better supervisory management in relation to productivity enhancement.
He concluded that determined efforts are therefore needed to equip human resource with sufficient productivity knowledge to transform Pakistan into a productivity-driven economy in the world.