By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam on Monday stressed the need for creating public-private partnership to transform quality of human resource in national research to boost the agriculture sector of the country.
While talking to a delegation of Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) of United Nations, headed by FAO’s Representative in Pakistan Ms. Rebekah Bell, Imam called for revitalizing the agricultural research in Pakistan.
Pakistan needed to create public-private partnership to enhance and make viable the agricultural research in the public sector, he said adding that it was pertinent to link the industry needs with the core of agricultural research in the public sector.
He emphasized that only innovative agricultural financing models could lead Pakistan’s agriculture into the future and urged FAO to bring agriculture research experts into Pakistan from USA, Japan, China, Australia and Brazil.
He said that we needed to transform the quality of the human resource in our national research centers so that overall agriculture sector could be led to prosperity.
Fakhar stated that the curriculum of agricultural universities in the country needed to be revamped so that word class scientists could be produced locally.
Both the sides agreed to hold workshops to chalk out a plan to revamp the research sector of the country. The minister also said that we needed to better protect intellectual property rights in Pakistan so that foreign companies could come and invest in the country.
