The Faculty of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, established in 1963, , with its constituent departments of Agricultural Economics, Farm Management, Agricultural Marketing, Cooperation and Credit and Rural Sociology, has now been functioning for over 51 years in the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. We have endeavored to keep ourselves abreast with the requirements in terms of acade
mic programmes/activities over these years. However, looking at the likely shape of agricultural development, the direction and quality of research and the make-up of trained manpower output in the discipline of agricultural social sciences, the future trends need to be looked into seriously so as to be able to meet the challenges of the 21st century. A perusal of the functioning of the various constituent departments of the faculty showed that over the years, the programmes of some of the departments had become less demanding in terms of academic and research output in line with the present day requirements. Especially under WTO set up, where we are shifting from subsistence agriculture to commercial agriculture putting further pressure to shift our emphasis to resource management strategy. Therefore, there was a strong need for a meaningful restructuring and fine tuning of the faculty to meet the challenges of the emerging requirements of the economy in the coming years. Keeping in view this need of time, the Faculty was restructured in 2012. The name of faculty was changed to Faculty of Social Sciences and the Departments of Agricultural Economics, Development Economics, and Environmental & Resource Economics were merged into a new institute, Institute of Agricultural & Resource Economics (IARE). Professor Dr. Muhammad Ashfaq is the first Director of IARE serving from June 2012 till date. IARE now offers various degree programs serving the needs of society:
1. MSc (Hons) Agricultural Economics (2 Years)
3. MSc (Hons) Development Economics (2 Years)
4. MSc (Hons) Environmental & Resource Economics (2 Years)
5. MSc Economics (Distance Learning Program) (2 Years)
6. M.Phil Economics (2 Years)
7. PhD Agricultural Economics
8. PhD Environmental & Resource Economics
9. PhD Economics
The Faculty of Social Sciences is now divided in following institutes:
-Institute of Agricultural and Resource Economics
-Institute of Business Management Sciences
-Institute of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development
- Department of Rural Sociology
for more info, visit, http://uaf.edu.pk/faculties/social_sci/agri_overview.html
