Welcome to the Department of Agricultural Extension & Rural Development

The Department of Agricultural Extension & Rural Development is one of the largest departments of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU) under the Faculty of Agriculture, which was established in 1992. The department offers graduate program leading to MS and PhD degrees and BS courses in this university.

Through farmers’ education, the department teaches the application of new insights and scientific research in agricultural field. In addition to the primary aim of providing higher education in this specialized field, this department is helping, collaborating and providing services to teaching, research and outreach staffs in designing and developing instructional material to improve their efforts in education, outreach and dissemination of research information.

Research facilities are available in Extension and Rural Development using the farmers’ situation as a social laboratory. Major research thrusts are identifying constraints to agro-rural development including ecosystem service management as well as sustainable agriculture related issues, developing alternative extension methods, strategies and approaches and extension teaching methods and techniques. Besides, the adoption and diffusion of agricultural innovations and their sociocultural barriers and the development of feedback mechanism on farmers’ reactions to new technologies are also the prime research areas of this department. Moreover, several other research areas have also been focused by this Department, including, utilizations of GIS in agriculture -extension, precision agriculture including good agricultural practices, research on higher education quality improvement, and also agriculture policy related issues.

The Department has nine (09) prominent faculty members with sound academic, teaching and research background, comprising 5 (five) professors, 2 (two) Associate Professors, and 2 (two) Assistant Professors. The outstanding performances of the faculty members have placed this Department on a unique position which is supported by more than 350 published articles, more than 2000 citations in different researches, producing 34 PhD and 230 MS graduates, so far. Due to strong academic, research and alumni association activities, the Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development might be No. 1 choice of many previous and prospective students.

Department Head

Dr. Muhammad Ziaul Hoque
Associate Professor
Phone: +880-2-9205310-14 Ext. 2438 (office)
Cell Phone: +880 01931527513
E-mail:  mziahoque.aer@bsmrau.edu.bd, mziahoque@yahoo.com