L-R: Ms Lakshmi Pillai, Manager, Grants Management, ICRISAT; Ms Joanna Kane-Potaka, Assistant Director General, ICRISAT, and Executive Director, Smart Food; Dr Arvind Kumar, Deputy Director General – Research, ICRISAT; and Dr P Chandra Shekara, Director General, meeting at MANAGE headquarters in Hyderabad India. Photo: MANAGE

Mar

Bringing agriculture research, development and extension systems together

L-R: Ms Lakshmi Pillai, Manager, Grants Management, ICRISAT; Ms Joanna Kane-Potaka, Assistant Director General, ICRISAT, and Executive Director, Smart Food; Dr Arvind Kumar, Deputy Director General – Research, ICRISAT; and Dr P Chandra Shekara, Director General, meeting at MANAGE headquarters in Hyderabad India. Photo: MANAGE

Agricultural extension training organization MANAGE and ICRISAT are exploring new opportunities to partner that will strengthen and integrate capacity building across the whole agricultural value chain. During a recent visit to the Hyderabad MANAGE campus, a 3-member team from ICRISAT discussed the signing of an MoU to begin a fruitful association.

One of the suggested areas of collaboration was agricultural development for corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects. As one of the members of MANAGE’s CSR Knowledge Forum, ICRISAT is known for its successful track record in completing CSR projects. Hence, we could play a key role in guiding CSR leaders and implementing projects.

Another area where our expertise was requested is the promotion of farmer producer organizations (FPOs). Providing policy support to FPOs, documentation of case studies, policy briefs etc. and training personnel in the same, would be a great support for MANAGE members.

Upscaling innovative agri concepts in other countries of Asia and Africa; supporting extension services towards climate-smart agriculture, promoting agri-preneurs through start-up initiatives were some of the other suggested areas of partnership.

As a first step in this direction, it was decided to formulate a Memorandum of Understanding for a collaboration between MANAGE and ICRISAT.

The meeting was held on 15 March 2021.

MANAGE (National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management) is an autonomous extension and agribusiness management institute located in Hyderabad, India.