ICRISAT is one of 16 non-profit, international agricultural research centers funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). ICRISAT’s mission is to help developing countries in the semi-arid tropics increase farm productivity and food security, reduce poverty, and protect the environment through optimum use of the natural resource endowment, through partnership-based international agricultural research, particularly with the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS).

The Institute’s headquarters are located at Patancheru in India. Its operations span four continents -- Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. Operations are currently administered from six bases; Patancheru (India), Bamako (Mali), Niamey (Niger), Matopos (Zimbabwe), Lilongwe (Malawi), and Nairobi (Kenya).

ICRISAT was founded in 1972, and operated from Hyderabad, India. Over the next few years, operations expanded rapidly. In 1975, we expanded our work into West Africa; scientists were posted to Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sudan, and worked out of national research stations. The same year, the then Prime Minister of India, Mrs Indira Gandhi, laid the foundation stone for a new facility at Patancheru, 30 km from Hyderabad; this was formally inaugurated in 1979 by another Indian Prime Minister, Chaudhari Charan Singh.