MULTAN: Agriculture experts have urged farmers to make use of two websites developed by University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) carrying soil and area-specific advisory which they believe can greatly help them achieve higher production at lower cost.
Dean Agriculture University of Sargodha, Dr Muhammad Afzal termed the UAF initiatives as revolutionary saying Android smartphones were available at cheaper price in the markets and farmers can have access to the websites through smartphones, said a press release issued by media liaison unit of Punjab agriculture department here Friday.
In a briefing held at Sargodha, he said that ‘www.fertilizeruaf.pk’ contains prediction models based on soil tests and advises farmers on what quantity of what fertilizers they should apply in accordance with soil needs.
Vice Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan said that efforts were on to provide this technology at the doorstep of every farmer in Punjab.
The website was developed by UAF in collaboration with Punjab Agriculture Department.The USAID and ICARDA are providing financial and technical support for creating awareness among the farming community for fertilizer prediction models.
Dr Muhammad Rashid, the principal investigator of the project said that Icarda country manager Dr Abdul Majid, was taking personal interest to help the University in this project.
UAF has also developed e-solutions for site specific and economical crop production technology for every individual farmer according to his piece of land and financial resources. These e-solutions are available for six districts i.e. Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Jhang, Okara and Layyah at the website’www.kissandost.pk’.
Farmers can invest according to their financial resources and accordingly they can earn profit up to Rs 100,000 per acre from arable cropping and Rs 3 to 4 lacs per acre from high value farming by using the e-solutions from the website. For the farmers, weather forecast for next 5 days is also available at this website.
