LANZHOU, Sept 3: Asfa Batool, a Pakistani postdoctoral fellow at Lanzhou University in northwest China’s Gansu province is continuing her dryland agricultural research in China in the hope of using her knowledge and technologies to increase the grain production of Pakistan.
Since Asfa came to Lanzhou University for her master degree in 2012 at the first time, she has spent about 11 years in the university where she earned her doctoral degree in ecology in 2018 and started postdoctoral research after her graduation from PhD.
Referring to studying in China, she was grateful to her advisor, Xiong Youcai, professor at the college of ecology of Lanzhou University, who once gave a lecture in her undergraduate studies at University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan and introduced Chinese dryland agriculture and water saving technology.
She was inspired by Chinese agricultural technologies and expected to learn from him to change the current situation of agriculture in Pakistan.
Sponsored by Chinese Government Scholarship, she applied for a graduate student at Lanzhou University and started her graduate study following professor Xiong in 2012.
She has been engaging in research work focusing on agriculture and biotechnologies to improve plant growth and productivity.
“Chinese dryland agricultural technology provides a potential innovative approach to upgrade the productivity of crops in arid and semi-arid regions, and a key solution to boost the agricultural production system and Lanzhou University is a well-known institute in China for agriculture studies. That’s why I chose the university,” said Asfa, adding that she hopes that Chinese technologies will be practiced in Pakistan because dry areas in Pakistan need more attention where the crops only depends on rainfall.
According to Xiong Youcai, Chinese dryland agricultural technology can not only avoid resource waste and effectively save water but also improve soil fertility and reduce evaporation at the soil surface.
The most important thing is that this technology is easy to be practiced and costs less.
With Xiong’s support such as helping her set up research objectives and providing lab facilities and the funding projects provided by Lanzhou University, Asfa did a lot of research on wheat and maize including split root experiments to study the role of phytohormones in drought stress. She also applied Chinese water-saving technology to maize and wheat planting experiments in Pakistan.
“I did that how flat planting and ridge furrow planting can help Pakistan to increase the yield and the crop productivity there. I compared Chinese technology with the local planting technology. I also especially focused on the poor people like local farmers how they can increase their yield and get benefits from Chinese technology,” said Asfa.
She is quite sure that China’s ridge and furrow mulching technology, a part of dryland agriculture, can produce more yield than flat planting. When she practiced the technology in experimental fields in dry areas in Pakistan, she was confident that she got very good results there.
She also visited many places in Gansu Province where local farmers implemented the water saving technology to get a harvest and feed their families.
For her, China is really making unremitting efforts to bring out the poor people to have a good life. “That’s Pakistan needs,” Asfa said, adding that she really wants to bring Chinese agricultural technology back to Pakistan to benefit more local farmers and improve their life quality.
Besides learning technologies, she focused on theoretical research. She has proposed and demonstrated several novel design techniques with number of high quality journal publications in the reputed peer-reviewed journals.
Moreover, she also worked in collaboration with scientists in China, Africa, Australia and Pakistan as a bridge. She helped arrange many international forums and meetings hosted by Lanzhou University because she is well in both Chinese and English, let alone her mother language Urdu.
According to Asfa, she helped participants about their accommodation and participation in the forum and facilitate them regarding daily needs. Lanzhou University trusts on her for every matter related to this.
In this April, 2023 Forum of University Alliance of the Belt and Road was held in Lanzhou University.
Asfa did a lot of volunteer work, including managing participants’ invitation letters and visa letters and facilitating them regarding their presentation and other official meetings at the university.
“These were all impressive experiences because they provides a platform for me to share and communicate different ideas among the people who come from different parts of the world,” said Asfa.
Asfa is eager to implement Chinese agricultural technologies to Pakistan after graduation and she thinks that China and Pakistan should join hands and collaborate more in more fields.