HYDERABAD: Sindh Agriculture University (SAU), Tandojam, and World Wide Fund-Pakistan (WWF-P) have inked an agreement to conduct joint research on green business projects for climate change, tree planting, better cotton production and organic farming.

The two organisations agreed the other day to cooperate with each other on action research and development and coordinate project activities in Sindh.

Tahir Rasheed, regional head of WWF-P and Altaf Shaikh, programme coordinator of WWF-P visited the university to discuss relevant issues with vice chancellor Dr Fateh Marri and heads of the university departments.

They briefed the VC and his team about WWF-P’s plans for climate change, tree plantation, better cotton initiative and integrated organic farming.

The VC highlighted priority areas for research in agricultural education extension, indigo conservation, rangeland and wetland management and opportunities for investment for green loans to develop industry-academia linkages.

He said that joint venture research project and fundraising proposals would attract global market for agricultural development to Sindh.

He suggested that salt and drought-tolerant varieties of fruit trees should be focused to cope with challenges of waterlogging and salinity. Covid-19 pandemic was a result of human intervention in nature. “We have to educate people about protecting nature to avoid problems like Covid-19 which shook the world,” he said.

Tahir Rasheed said the WWF-P focused on green business and joint venture projects with universities for action research. This would ultimately be helpful for economic goods through commercialization, he said.

He said that WWF was supporting business model through green loans and SAU faculty, researchers and students would be involved in joint research programmes. The WWF-P would support SAU for nursery development and plant trees in various locations on the SAU campus and its sub-campuses and colleges, he said.

He said that WWF-P would sign an MoU with SAU for land development, tree plantation and technical support. Simultaneously, SAU faculty and students would be involved in research and internship programmes, he said.

Prof Dr Mohammad Ismail Kumbhar, director of the university’s advancement and financial assistance, said the SAU and WWF-P would work together through a green climate fund for organic products to alleviate poverty and reduce malnutrition. Local species of plants should be promoted and farmers’ capacity should be built to enable them to adopt indigenous trees at their farms, he said.

Prof Dr Inayatullah Rajpar, chairman of the department of soil sciences, said that bio-saline agriculture should focus on improving coastal land. The department of soil sciences developed salt-tolerant trees and focused on land resource management and adoption of bio-saline agriculture at grass-root level, he said.

He said the department was involved in utilising banana waste in fibre, pulp, compost and liquid fertiliser and students were involved in research for preparation of bio-fertiliser.

Altaf Shaikh, coordinator of WWF-P, said that joint venture programmes through research priority areas in agricultural education would be helpful for quality and monitoring of programme and training of the farming community.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2022