Pampanga State Agricultural University, abbreviated as PSAU, is a state-owned agricultural university located in Magalang, Pampanga, Central Luzon, the Philippines.
History
The idea of establishing an agricultural experiment station was hatched in 1873 by Spanish businessman Don Bernardo Garcia Coteron and his partner, Don Jose Pesaña Piñol. The proposed experiment station was named La Granja Modelo de Luzon (The Model Farm of Luzon). They applied for a royal grant in the same year, and it was granted in 1874. The granja will serve an experiment station for their company, Coteron y Compañia, for propagation, experimentation and cultivation of their cash crops especially in tobacco. It has 300 hectares of land, located in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, and took years to construct necessary structures.
On November 15, 1881, with the creation of La Comision Agronomica de Filipinas, it took over the operations of granja and appointed its first director, Don Jose Alemany Penalva. Due to the insufficient and poor condition of the land, on March 20, 1885, the Spanish government transferred the granja from San Isidro, Nueva Ecija to the foothills of Mt. Arayat in Magalang, Pampanga. Its governing charter was issued by Queen Maria Christina on January 30, 1886. The new land has 900 hectares, cleared mostly by the polistas. The granja was transformed into a full agricultural experiment station equipped with school and staff buildings, animal pens, sugar mill, alcohol distillery and weather observatory. The station was headed by a director (equivalent to agricultural engineer), assisted by an ayundante de montes and a perito agricola, who were all Spaniards. It also housed a 50-man companias disciplinarias providing rotational security to the granja.
The granja offered two programs; the first and most important was a three-year sequence in farm management, leading to the title of perito agricola. The candidates who wanted this title had to demonstrate the possession of suitable secondary-level schooling in geometry, trigonometry, drawing physics, and chemistry, prior to entrance. The other program, which conferred the title of capataz de cultivo, concerned itself with the preparation of field foremen and livestock supervisors. Those who obtained these titles were conferred as graduates equivalent to a college graduate both in the Philippines and Spain. The granja has a variety of breeds of animals such as buffaloes, cattle, wild pigs, goats, horses, chickens, ducks and doves. La Granja was devoted to the cultivation and experimentation of wheat, sorghum, sesame, rice, corn, indigo, tobacco, peanuts, potatoes, sugarcane and alfalfa.
On June 30, 1887, La Granja Modelo de Luzon won the highest diploma honor award from Exposicion de Filipinas held in Madrid, Spain in the field of agriculture, especially in the cultivation and exhibition of tobacco and different varieties of corn. (La Granja Modelo won the award together with famous Filipinos such as Juan Luna who won the same award for his masterpiece, Una Mestiza; Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, gold medal awardee for his masterpiece, La Barca de Aqueronte; and the father of Filipino socialism, Isabelo de los Reyes, silver medal awardee for his selection, Folklore Filipina.)
In 1891, the granja was transformed by Governor General Valeriano Weyler into La Escuela Pecuaria (the Livestock School). The school was expanded, focusing on the study and breeding of cattle. In 1894, the weather observatory become fully operational with telegraph lines connected with the Observatorio de Manila. In 1895, the granja pioneered the experiment and study of different Central American varieties of peanuts and teosintes. On January 23, 1894, it won the silver medal award from Exposicion Regional de Filipinas in the field of cross breeding of Arabian horses, exhibition of different rice varieties and different types of farm equipment.
At the outbreak of the revolution, it was used as one of the hideouts of the Spanish troops fighting the insurgents in Camansi. During the Philippine–American War, it served as a grazing area for cavalry horses and a training ground for American troops.