KU VC Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi Inaugurates Sunflower Festival

Vice Chancellor of the University of Karachi Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi on Thursday inaugurated the Sunflower Festival 2024 and Air and Weather Station at the KU Agriculture Experimental Field

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Mar, 2024) Vice Chancellor of the University of Karachi Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi on Thursday inaugurated the Sunflower Festival 2024 and Air and Weather Station at the KU Agriculture Experimental Field.

The KU Department of Agriculture and Agribusiness Management has organized the event which will remain open till Friday.

On this occasion, the KU VC observed that there is no doubt that with the use of modern technology, Pakistan can easily bring a revolution in the agricultural sector.

Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi said that plantation is very essential for Pakistan especially in Karachi because our city has become a concrete metropolitan. “We need to give special attention to creating awareness and a culture to promote plantation. A greener and cleaner city is the need of the hour.”

He mentioned that the students of almost every department of the University of Karachi are getting the opportunity to work in the field.

He appreciated that despite the limited resources the department of agriculture and agribusiness management have conducted a lot of experiments on different types of crops and this field has shown their hard work producing excellent results.

On this occasion, he visited the stalls that were set up by the department’s students. They briefed the KU VC Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi about the different types of crops grown in the agricultural experimental field of the University of Karachi.

The audience was told that sunflower, wheat, corn, and other crops, were present and cotton would be produced soon.

Earlier, the Chairperson of the KU Department of Agriculture and Agribusiness Management Dr Faheem Akbar shared that different types of plants and crops are available at the agriculture experimental land which is spread over 18 acres of land.

He said that MPhil and PhD and other students are conducting research trials on this land and air and weather station has been established so that crop data can be monitored according to weather conditions.

He said that experiments on planting soybeans at low cost will also be done in the future. Apart from this, students are researching varieties of maize that can be used as fodder.

Later, three memorandum of understanding were signed with Universal Engineering Services, Morganic, and Pakistan Horticulture Development and Export Company to collaborate and cooperate for the promotion of horticulture development, and to establish an agri-research integrated business facility that develops a farming system for non-conventional and horticultural crops in urban environments by utilizing local talent and resources, and to have crop yield and quality analysis, to check soil health and regeneration studies, for biodiversity assessment, and water usage and conservation, economic viability and cost analysis.