Speakers at a seminar on self-sustaining rural enterprises here at University of Agriculture (UAF) urged to promote Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to transform the rural setup into growing business hubs of the country. The seminar was organized by Institute of Agricultural and Resource Economics at DLC-2 with Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Muhammad Iqbal Zafar as chief guest.
Addressing the participants Vice Chancellor Dr Muhammad Iqbal Zafar said that 3.2 million SMEs are contributing 30 per cent share in the national economy. He urged the participants belonging to rural areas of the district to get themselves engaged with small businesses like fish, ostrich, rabbit, parrot, and fancy birds farming and attract the people with agri-tourism by putting organic food and healthy recreational activities in the area. He emphasised upon the participants to involve the rural females in household business activities and indigenous backyard poultry farming, which he said would certainly enhance their income and raise their living standard.
Presenting the example of Pathans, he said they were not choosy but always prefer to work whatever they are asked for so, we need to work hard at whatever skills we have. He said Turkish and Thai people are famous due to their successful model of rural enterprises, that, he emphasized to be replicated at the rural set-up of the country. He told that many European countries have less than 10 million population but today our cities are crossing 10 million margin that needs to be managed and governed by local governance system with better facilities.
Turkish Professor Dr Mithat Direk from Selcuk University, Konya Turkey said that micro and small enterprises (MSE) are playing pivotal role in socio-economic development and poverty alleviation in Turkey that could benefit Pakistan arrest the growing poverty and unemployment. In Turkey, he told that the government has created trade mark villages to boost relevant industry and business in the area. Describing the small enterprises as engines of economic growth, he said that it has the potential to generate employment and to alleviate poverty in an environment of increasing unemployment and widening income inequality. Elaborating his views, he further said that new technologies and restructuring of production processes in the world favour small enterprises in comparison with large enterprises, particularly since the late 1970s.
Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences Professor Dr Ashfaq Ahmad Maann welcomed the participants and urged them to involve themselves in milk value addition and harness the potential of service providers as there are tremendous opportunities for the skilled and educated youth to guide the farmers increase their yield and raise income.
Professor Dr Muhammad Ashfaq said that daily income of 72 per cent youth in underdeveloped and developing countries is less than 2 dollars. He told that 40 per cent youth of these countries is unemployed that adds to the worries of the rural population. He told that he remained part of a TIKA project in which 1 male and 4 female goats had been distributed among the rural women to make them self-employers. He said that in future, they are coming with a project of distributing buffalos and cows among the rural population.
Dr Khalid Bashir, Dr Ishaq Javed, Dr Umar Farooq, Tariq Tanvir CEO Agri-Tourism, Malik Ahsan (Fancy Bird Farmer), Malik Iqrar (Ostrich Farmer), Muhammad Zahid (Quail Farmer), Dr Nazim and other notables were among the speakers.