The launch of the World Bank-assisted National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) four years ago marked a new chapter in agricultural research. Researchers began viewing agriculture as a business and not just a means of subsistence for farmers. As a result, research models now encompass the entire value chain from farm to market. The project broadly aims to make Indian agriculture and agricultural research knowledge-based and IT-enabled so that it can cater to the market and meet fast-changing consumer demands. The mantra is to capitalise on innovations and innovative ideas regardless of whether these are generated within the farm research system or outside. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), which is implementing NAIP, is reaching out to non-agricultural knowledge centres such as general universities, science and technology institutes, private bodies and even civil society organisations for innovative ideas and research. The concept of innovation, which is interpretable variously, has been given a precise definition to guide NAIP’s philosophy: “Using something old in new ways or applying something new to successfully produce desired social and economic outcome is innovation.”
This approach is also being adopted for down-the-line activities right up to the consumption level to ensure the research outcomes are put to gainful use. “This project will prepare Indian agriculture to face the emerging challenges, including those from climate change, in the whole chain from seed to market,” says ICAR Director General S Ayyappan. About one-third of the NAIP’s budget of Rs 1,200 crore has been earmarked for building the national agricultural research system’s (read ICAR’s) capacity to serve as a catalyst for change. The rest of the funds are allocated to research projects in three other broad areas — production to consumption systems; sustainable rural livelihood security; and strategic research in frontier areas of science, such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and so on.
To expand the researchers’ access to knowledge, over 2,900 international research journals have been made available online to some 124 libraries in various agricultural institutes and farm universities. Most of these journals are cost-wise unaffordable for these libraries. Besides, over 7,000 PhD theses, which normally remain confined to the libraries of the universities concerned, have been digitised and put on the Internet.
A significant step towards commercialising farm research outcomes is setting up 10 business planning and development units (BPDUs) in the ICAR institutes and state agricultural universities. These units identify the technologies and facilitate their scaling-up for commercial production. Over 150 enterprises are already said to have come up with the support of these BPDUs.
The results are showing. Jasmine flowers grown in Tamil Nadu villages are now arriving in flower markets in the US, Europe and the Gulf countries, after being suitably treated to enhance their shelf life. Banana stem is being gainfully utilised to extract fibre for combining with other yarns to prepare fabrics. This has provided employment and income to people in rural areas in the banana growing tracts of Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, where fabric manufacturing units are coming up.
Besides, several ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat health foods based on coarse grains have been developed under the NAIP project. The technology for manufacturing them has either been passed on to prospective enterprises for commercial production or is available for that purpose. Multi-grain chapattis made of a mixture of sorghum, wheat and soyabean flours is one example. A bakery unit has already started producing such chapattis for sale in the market. The flour mixture is also modifiable to include bajra, ragi, maize or barley for greater health benefits.
NAIP has, in a sense, built on the strong foundation laid down by its predecessor, the National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP), which was completed in 2005. That project, also supported by the World Bank, had infused fresh blood in the country’s farm research infrastructure, which had started showing signs of fatigue and was, rightly or wrongly, being held responsible for the deceleration of agricultural growth in the 1990s. NAIP now has an opportunity to use the rejuvenated farm research system to add greater value to it. This will benefit not only the farm-dependent rural masses but also the common man.
