PIR MEHR ALI SHAH ARID AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY

Pakistan is predominantly an agricultural country. However, since its independence in 1947, emphasis has been on irrigated agriculture, while the dryland / arid agriculture remained neglected. With rapid increase in population the irrigated areas failed to provide food requirements and it became imperative to find out ways to make use of the huge part of culturable land in the rainfed region. In the 1970s, the Government of Pakistan constituted a Barani Commission to review and recommend measure... s for the development of rainfed agriculture and uplift of the poor masses through education, research, and development of technology and manpower. Pursuant to the recommendations of the Barani Commission, the Government of Punjab established Barani Agricultural College, Rawalpindi which was later upgraded to the level of the University in 1994. The mandate of the University is to produce high-quality agricultural scientists and to form an organized scientific infrastructure for teaching and research for the development of dryland regions of the country, thus minimizing the income gap between the rich and poor and irrigated & arid areas.More