The delegation from DAI United States Pakistan office led by Global Practice Specialist Dr Lorine Giangola visited the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) Lahore called on Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Nasim Ahmad.
Meanwhile a detailed meeting with delegation was held at City Campus on Climate Smart Agriculture Activity and lessons of working with smallholder farmers through ACIAR Dairy-Beef project in Punjab and Sindh. Prof Dr Nasim Ahmad chaired the meeting and DAI delegation looking for getting information and knowledge regarding increasing the adoption of climate smart agriculture practices and technologies, increasing the resilience of smallholder farmers with a focus on women empowerment and strengthening the enabling environment for private sector investment in climate smart agriculture.
In this meeting ACIAR Dairy-Beef Project Manager Dr Humaira Iqbal, Dr Hassan Warraich, faculty members and other delegation from DAI-Pakistan including Business Development Specialist Ms Kira Aglio, Country Business Development Manager Mr Waqar Ahmad and Consultant- Climate Smart Agriculture Dr Nadia Ayub were present. Speaking on the occasion, Prof Dr Nasim Ahmad briefed the delegation on UVAS academic and research activities, disease diagnosis, treatment and extension services for the benefit of poor farming community to save their animals. He shared that UVAS faculty member successfully running 110 research projects which they won from national and international funding agencies. He said UVAS working closely with livestock, poultry, dairy and meat industry and playing its lead role for the uplift of livestock sector in Pakistan. Prof Dr Nasim also said UVAS is providing recommendations and contributing to the provincial policies making and planning for the livestock sector and is particularly very concerned to reduce the climate change stress on animals and farming families.
Earlier, Chairman Department of Animal Nutrition Associate Prof Dr Naveed ul Haq gave detail presentation on UVAS work on climate change. In which he spoke about challenges related to poor nutritional strategies, heat stress season, housing and managemental practices, electric demand in urban areas, water supply to livestock and livestock health management and reproduction facing in Pakistan. He highlighted UVAS goals on climate change and UVAS state of the art facility for conducting experiment on livestock. He also mentioned about livestock policy brief for the profitability of poor farming community and national and international collaborative project on climate change etc. Dr Humera Iqbal provided a brief about the key lessons of research-based information to the smallholder farmers particularly women through Dairy-Beef project in UVAS.