A three-day(March 28-30, 2016) Regional Training Workshop on GIS for Agricultural Monitoring commenced at Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi (PMAS-AAUR), here on Monday, with an aim to impart knowledge on efficient use of Geo-Information for monitoring and mapping of various agricultural processes and systems.

The workshop was organized by PMAS-AAUR in collaboration Islamic Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization (ISESCO) and Inter Islamic Network on Information Technology (IINIT). Prof. Dr. Rai Niaz Ahmad, Vice Chancellor PMAS-AAUR was the chief guest while MPA Raja Muhammad Hanif and MPA Malik Iftikhar was the guests of honor. Participants from Sudan, Moroco, Iran and Aljeria, agricultural scientists, policy makers, GIS & Remote sensing analysts, faculty members and students from Pakistan are also attending the workshop.

Prof. Dr. Rai Niaz Ahmad, Vice Chancellor PMAS-AAUR, in his address said that food security is one of the major challenges for the world. He emphasized that sustainable agricultural land use critically depends on continuous assessment and monitoring of agricultural processes. To reduce the threat of temporary imbalances between food supply and demand we have to obtain timely and accurate information on areas of crops and their productions, he added.

He further said that satellite based remote sensing and geographic information system substantially increases the value of information on agricultural land usage, crop production estimation and climate change assessment.

He was of the view that universities are the hub of research, innovations and capacity building. He urged the faculty members to play their pivotal role of capacity building of agriculture professionals in the emerging fields like GIS & Remote Sensing, Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and ICT for Agriculture.

He congratulated organizers for taking lead and organizing workshop. He  hoped that PMAS-AAUR would continue playing its part for development of agriculture sector.

Dr. Aicha Bammoun Representative of ISESCO, Engr. Tahir Naeem Representative of IINIT and Dr Mobushir Riaz Khan Workshop Focal person in their key note addresses comprehensively enlightened the features of remote sensing and GIS that these are the reliable means of collecting information on crop monitoring and damage assessment, crop growth modeling, crop production estimation and yield gap analysis.

In the three days workshop participants will provide the use of satellite imagery, remote sensing and GIS applications as tool at various scales to assess the evolution of vegetation cover. The workshop will also highlight the importance of promoting the creation of national databases for agriculture indicators related to national and regional figures for vegetation cover, the evolution of crop lands and characterization of these lands (agriculture, forests, pastures etc.).