LAHORE – Pakistan Agricultural Coalition’s ‘Agri-Connections 2024’ will be held in Lahore from April 24-25 at Lahore Expo Center with the focus on increasing investment in agriculture, showcasing innovation, increasing exports, reducing imports, and improving farmer profitability.
“The conference has been designed to accelerate the rising wave of interest in agriculture among Pakistan’s private sector and governments for real agri-development,” said Arif Nadeem, CEO Pakistan Agricultural Coalition, while talking to a group of journalists on Friday. He added that leading businesses of the country will demonstrate their innovation and leadership in agriculture to all stakeholders while keynote speakers will present on various topics in the 2-day conference.
In addition to the conference, he added, there will be an expo segment with the best-in-class players in each segment of agriculture showcasing the important projects they have done in agriculture.
“On the sidelines of the event, structured connections will be made between investors, farmers, start-ups, government entities, donors, experts. Finally, for small agri start-ups, Agri-Connections 2024 will have ZarZaraat, a SharkTank-style competition being held in collaboration with Bank of Punjab,” said Kazim Saeed, Strategy Advisor to Pakistan Agricultural Coalition.
He explained the ‘Sharktank-style’ segment of the Agri-Connections 2024 in line with the overall theme of the conference that is to make it clear that the corporate sector of Pakistan is already investing in agriculture.
“Through the ZarZaraat segment of Agri-Connections 2024, our goal is to highlight that Pakistan has many exciting new ideas that can change the face of agriculture in the coming few years given the right enabling environment and investment.
“We received thirty-five applications within the deadline and, with the help and expertise of our Knowledge Partner A.F. Ferguson & Co., we were able to make a long list of seven applications for our jury to review,” he said.
“We hope that when these finalists pitch to investors at Agri-Connections 2024, the audience realizes that something significant is likely to materialize in Pakistan’s agriculture sector if any of the finalists receive funding,” said Kazim.
