Rice Value Chain for Increasing Farm Income and Entrepreneurship

Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & DG (ICAR) visited the ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack and reviewed the Institute’s activities there.    The Director General interacted with the 22 participants of a two-months “Start-up Agri-Business Incubation Programme” launched by the VIKAS R-ABI, ICAR-NRRI. He also applauded the innovative prototypes and provided his valuable tips for improving them.

Dr. Mohapatra also visited the newly built Central Genomics and Quality Laboratory, Social Science Building and other facilities created at the Institute.

Among the various approaches to increase farm income and promote entrepreneurship, the prospect of value chain is being advocated in agriculture and allied sectors. Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra, the then Director of ICAR-NRRI first made an attempt to operationalize in rice.

According to him, the rice value chain besides having the fundamental benefits have some added prospective which were

• Rice will continue to dominate the farm production for various socioeconomic and cultural reasons in spite of poor financial gains and market glut.

• Demand in the national and international market for quality rice is quite apparent

• Apart from farmers other stake holders can join the chain leading to creation of additional employment and

• Quality and speciality rice varieties developed by research institutes can spread quickly with less investment in extension.

Having the above logic in view, the planning for the model was initiated. Dr. H. Pathak, Director, ICAR-NRRI along with various other Dignitaries was present during the review.

The VIKAS R-ABI aims to promote the innovation led entrepreneurship through Start-Up creation. The programme has been funded under the Scheme of RKVY-RAFTAAR Agribusiness Incubator by the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana of Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi.