Dr. Amir Muhammed receives Dr. Borlaug Lifetime Achievements Award

This is a moment of pride for us that Dr. Amir Muhammed, Rector FAST-NU, has been awarded “Dr. Borlaug Lifetime Achievements Award” by the President of Pakistan, His Excellency, Mamnoon Hussain in an impressive ceremony organized to mark 50 years of Pakistan-US cooperation in agriculture and to celebrate hundred years of Dr. Norman Borlaug.

Dr. Amir Muhammed has been given this prestigious award in recognition of his lifelong contribution in the field of agriculture research and development in Pakistan.

This is worth mentioning that Dr. Norman Borlaug was an American legendary Scientist at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) who developed high-yielding, semi-dwarf wheat variety that is credited with saving over one billion people from starvation. Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug was born on March 25, 1914 and died on September 12, 2009. He was a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and father of the Green Revolution.

Dr. Amir Muhammed is a very dynamic agricultural professional with vast experience of institutionalizing agriculture in Pakistan including network of National Agricultural Research System. He is the founder and first Chairman of Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) and also established the Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB) in Faisalabad in 1970 and was its first Director. He has also been a Consultant to several organizations including World Bank, FAO, UNDP, IFAD and World Commission on Dams (WCD). He served as Advisor for Food and Agriculture to the President of Pakistan during 1977-78 and Vice Chancellor of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad from 1974 to 1977.

Dr. Amir was a member of the prestigious Technical Advisory Committee of CGIAR. He was elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees of ISNAR (The Hague, Netherlands) and was also a member of the BoT of ICARDA (Syria), IWMI (Sri Lanka), CIP (Peru) and IFDC (US). He is a Fellow of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences (PAS) and was elected President of the Academy from 1992 to 1996. Dr. Amir is also a Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences, Trieste, Italy and a member of the BoG of ICIMOD based in Kathmandu.

Dr. Amir got his M.Sc (Honors with gold medal) from Punjab University and Ph.D from Oxford University (UK) in 1959. He was awarded an honorary D.Sc. by the Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana, India.