ICAR supporting agri-startups under NAIF, says Tomar
Financial support through Knowledge Partners and Agri Business Incubators will be provided to 799 start-ups as an encouragement to use innovative technologies to resolve challenges faced in agriculture and allied sectors, said Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
Also, the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) has been supporting Agri-based startups under the project called National Agriculture Innovation Fund (NAIF) initiated since 2016-2017, the Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare said in a written reply in Lok Sabha 26 July 2022.
It has two components viz. (I) Innovation Fund; (II) Incubation Fund and National Coordinating Unit (NCU):
Component I: 10 Zonal Technology Management Units and 89 Institute
Technology Management Units (ITMUs) established in 99 ICAR institutes provide a single-window mechanism to manage innovations, showcase intellectual assets, and pursue matters related to intellectual property (IP) management and transfer/commercialization of technologies in these institutes.
Component II: Agri-business Incubator Centres (ABICs) are set up to speed up the delivery of the new technologies to stake holders.
The ABICs are the nodal point to provide the desired link for Agriculture Research &Development (R&D) Institutions for incubation/ commercialization of the validated technologies.
So far, 50 Agri-Business Incubation Centers have been established and are operational in the ICAR network under the NAIF scheme, said Tomar.
Further, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare had organized a Digital Agriculture-Stakeholder Consultation meet on 11 July 2022 in New Delhi, to create a vision for Public Private Partnership for the delivery of digital and hi-tech services to farmers with the involvement of public sector research and extension institutions along with private agri-tech players and stakeholders of agri-value chain.
Elaborating, Tomar said a Steering Committee has been constituted comprising of experts from different Ministries, fields, domain, educational & research Institutes, private tech players and other stakeholders for advising on various initiatives that are being undertaken, especially India Digital Ecosystem in Agriculture (IDEA) and the proposed AgriStack, including implementation experiences across different fields and sectors. fiinews.com
