The United States Ambassador in Pakistan, Richard Hoagland, visited one of the PARC station demonstration site of Watershed Rehabilitation and Irrigation Improvement in Pakistan at Satrameel, Islamabad to hear directly from farmers about how the project is improving their daily lives.
Farmers across Pakistan are improving their productivity and livelihoods through US Government-funded watershed management programme. The USDA has invested more than $3 million to create seven watershed management and irrigation demonstration sites throughout Pakistan. Farmers are trained at the sites on how to effectively manage scarce water resources, leading to increased yields and ultimately, higher incomes. On behalf of American people and government of US he congratulated the farmers and asked them to continue success by using technologies being testing at the site. The project is playing an important role to uplift the livelihood of the local farming community of the area. They are using technologies for effective watershed management and growing off-season vegetables, etc.
The watershed rehabilitation and irrigation improvement programme is a collaborative effort between USDA, ICARDA, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) of the Ministry of National Food Security & Research. On behalf of Chairman PARC, Dr Muhammad Sharif, Member (SSD)/DG, NARC welcomed the distinguished guests from US Embassy, USDA-Pakistan and other participants. Dr Muhammad Sharif said that this visit will open new areas of collaborations with PARC alongside strengthening of ongoing initiatives.
He said that various applied watershed management technologies have been developed and tested here to meet future challenges. Dr Nadeem Amjad, Member (NRD) PARC briefed about the PARC role and mandate in terms of international co-ordination and local collaborations for improved natural resources management in Pakistan.-PR
