Prof. Dr. Rai Niaz Ahmad, Vice Chancellor, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (PMAS-AAUR), visited Agency for Barani Areas Development (ABAD) on February 19, 2013.

 A formal meeting between Mr. Tariq Javed Malik, Director General, ABAD, Dr. Abdul Majeed, Country Representative International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Prof. Dr. Rai Niaz Ahmad, Vice Chancellor PMAS- AAUR, held at ABAD.

The meeting was aimed to develop working relationships among institutes to address the issues related to the arid agriculture particularly land and water. After detailed deliberation and brainstorming a working group was formulated to take necessary action in adjustment of focus and prioritization of research areas. It was agreed upon by the Director General ABAD that existing Water Resources developed by ABAD would be utilized for the research experiments while ICARDA would serve as focal point to explore the funding for desired research projects and all the research experimentation would be carried on by the Arid Agriculture University on the proposed research sites along with dissemination of results to the farmers of the region.

It was also decided that a model Agricultural Research Farm would be established at the University Research Farm Koont, where integrated approaches of modern farming would be used like drip/sprinkler irrigation for orchards, tunnel farming for vegetable production etc. This farm would also be used as demonstration site for the farmers of the region to adopt the identified modern farming techniques practiced at the farm.

On the occasion, Prof. Dr. Rai Niaz Ahmad said that it is high time that we should collaborate for change and uplift of the arid region as isolated working of different R&D organizations of Agriculture Department based at Rawalpindi may not be too productive. He emphasized that our focus should be on rain water harvesting, water resource development and value addition of farm produce.

In the meeting, Dr. Safdar Ali, Dean Faculty of Crop & Food Sciences, PMAS-AAUR, Prof. Dr. Nadeed A. Abbasi, Chairman Horticulture Department, PMAS-AAUR, Prof. Dr. Fayyaz-ul-Hassan,   Chairman Agronomy Department, PMAS-AAUR, Prof. Dr. Saleem Akhter, Chairman Department of Soil Science & Soil & Water Conservation PMAS-AAUR , Dr. Ghulam Jillani, Director Research, Innovation and Commercialization, PMAS-AAUR, Dr. Muhammad Ashraf, Water Expert from ICARDA, Mr. Azam Tarar, Project Manager ABAD, and Mr. Muhammad Zaheer, Deputy Director Development, ABAD were also present on the occasion.