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24 March 2009
Successful dairy links with Pakistan
Graham Centre member and successful researcher, Professor Peter Wynn, has strengthened links with the Pakistani dairy industry through his ACIAR project entitled "Improving dairy production in Pakistan through improved extension services". In addition, Prof Wynn assisted with coordinating a group of undergraduate students from Charles Sturt University to visit Pakistan recently to conduct a three day seminar in Lahore. This visit was funded by Ausaid. The seminar broke new ground for training in Pakistan, providing the first opportunity for the 40 participating Pakistani students, young academics and scientists to meet and exchange ideas on dairy production in each of their respective provinces.
Both the ACIAR project and the students' visit to Pakistan will serve to improve the quality of 
extension services on offer to the 8.5 million small-holder dairy farmers in Pakistan, who are starved of useful information to improve the productivity of their cattle.
Whilst in Pakistan, the students also worked with groups of farmers who are engaged in an ongoing extension project in the Punjab State. This program is designed to measure their progress in productivity in response to our training initiatives, which focus on improving the nutrition and health of animals on farm. They also assisted with a research project on calf rearing that is in progress at the University of Agriculture in Faisalabad.
The Vice-Chancellor of the host University, the University of Veterinary and Animal Science in Lahore, was very interested with the novel interactive teaching approach that our four students adopted for the seminars. He was hopeful that his University would be able to adopt similar "problem solving" approaches to teaching in the near future.
The Graham Centre continues to support such international links to improve productivity and sustainable mixed farming systems.
The students will present a special seminar in Wagga on 25 March 2009 which will highlight their recent adventures and the challenges they encountered working in a very different dairy environment.
Contact: Peter Wynn T: (02) 6933 2938, E: pwynn@csu.edu.au