Executive Staff

Dr. Mubarik Ali, Chief Executive Punjab Agricultural Research Board, is  internationally renowned agricultural economist, and has over twenty years research and research management experience in international organizations, like USAID, IRRI, World Bank and AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center. He obtained PhD degree from the University of the Philippines in Los-Baneos. He has visited 35 countries around the world to conduct collaborative research, attend high-level policy dialogue, seminars and workshops. He has specifically worked on prioritization of research and development issues, monitoring the impact of modern technologies and policies, estimating the rate of return on investment in agriculture, exploring the issues in consumers demand for food quality and nutrition, and looking into the interface of policies, technologies, and farm-management practices for sustainable agriculture. He has also explored the issues of agricultural diversification and value chain quite extensively. Dr. Ali has Managed several cross-country projects earlier like peri-urban for Southeast Asia, livelihood in Afghanistan, and Socioeconomic and nutrition in Asia. He has over 30 papers published in international journals, three edited books, and over 100 in house reports, seminar papers, and book chapters. He won the Presidential Award from the Government of Taiwan for his contribution in the promotion of mungbean in South Asia.

Engineer Dr. Mohammad Rafiq-ur-Rehman, Member (Admn. & Finance) Punjab Agricultural Research Board has vast experience in farm mechanization. Dr. Reafiq got PhD. degree in Agricultural Engineering from Clemson University, South Carolina, USA. He served in Agricultural Mechanization Research Institute (AMRIA) as Director for over 12 years. He also served as Director General Agriculture (Field), Punjab for over 5 years. Dr. Rafiq is well known among the scientists, farming community, manufacturers of agricultural machinery, and service providers for the low cost and appropriate technologies developed by him. During his stay at AMRI, he developed about 20 farm mechanization technologies out of which two, i.e. coulter seed drill and seed cleaner grader have been commercialized. Dr. Rafiq has traveled extensively abroad to attend meetings and to present papers in professional meetings, seminars, and workshops. Dr. Rafiq is known as a resource person for standardization of machinery and equipment. Some of the other areas of specialization of Dr. Rafiq are pesticides application techniques, green house environment control and development of low cost and appropriate farm mechanization technologies. In recognition of his professional excellence, he has been awarded Fellowship by the Institution of Engineers. He has about 20 research publications at his credit and is joint author of a book on seed processing and storage.

Dr. Ahmad Saleem Akhtar, Member (Planning and Programming) Punjab Agricultural Research Board has profound understanding of the issues in the agriculture sector, and deep knowledge of the agricultural research system in Punjab. He is well respected scientist among researchers community within the country and abroad for his pioneer work in the field of plant protection especially on diseases caused by lower fungi. He obtained his Ph.D. in Botany (Plant Pathology) from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan. He has done Postdoc training from University of Arizona and Training in Research Management and Administration from U. C. Davis, USA. He served as Director Plant Protection Institute, Faisalabad for more than ten years. He has won many awards including the most prestigious awards of Dr. Borlaug Medal for Agricultural Research and Pride of Performance. Dr. Saleem is member of many professional societies and is on the Editorial board of many scientific journals. He has been President of Pakistan Phytopathological Society for two terms. He is author of more than 135 Research publications and two books.

Dr. Abdul Rashid, Member (Monitoring and Evaluation) in Punjab Agricultural Research Board has vast experience in agricultural research management, especially in project preparation, management, monitoring and evaluation. Before joining PARB, he worked as Director Vegetable Research Institute in Faisalabad and as a Chairman of the Horticulture Research Planning Group. He is on the panel of experts of PARC, HEC and Pakistan Science Foundation for project reviews and evaluation. He is also on the editorial panels of leading research journals of Pakistan. He did his Ph.D. from the Iowa State University, USA. During his career, he led the teams of scientists for the development of better varieties of cotton, wheat, vegetables and oilseeds especially sunflower & canola. A number of varieties were released by these teams for general cultivation in Punjab. Dr. Rashid has specialization in breeding of hybrid varieties. He has the credit to be pioneer in starting hybrid breeding programs of Sunflower, Canola and many vegetable crops in Punjab. Dr. Rashid has published 13 research papers in national and international research Journals in addition to more than 100 articles in magazines and newspapers. He is also author of a book entitled “Breeding Methodologies in Oilseed Crops”.