Agripreneurship Development Programme

Agricultural production environment, being a dynamic entity, has kept evolving continuously. The present phase of changes being encountered by the agricultural sector, such as reducing availability of quality water, nutrient deficiency in soils, climate change, farm energy availability, loss of biodiversity, emergence of new pests and diseases, fragmentation of farms, rural-urban migration, coupled with new IPRs and trade regulations, are some of the new challenges. These changes impacting agriculture call for a paradigm shift in our research approach. We have to harness the potential of modern science, encourage innovations in technology generation, and provide for an enabling policy and investment support. Some of the critical areas as genomics, molecular breeding, diagnostics and vaccines, nanotechnology, secondary agriculture, farm mechanization, energy, and technology dissemination need to be given priority. Multi-disciplinary and multiinstitutional research will be of paramount importance, given the fact that technology generation is increasingly getting knowledge and capital intensive. Our institutions of agricultural research and education must attain highest levels of excellence in development of technologies and competent human resource to effectively deal with the changing scenario.

In identifying the gaps and needs in the field of Forecasting techniques and modeling especially uses of data mining technique in Agriculture. The programme  will provide overview of the various statistical tools useful for statistical modeling for forecasting crops and computer softwares. The topics range from Weather based pre-harvest crop forecasting, Markov chain model, Non-linear growth Models, Artificial Neural Network, Fuzzy Regression, Linear and Non–linear Time Series Modeling, Forewarning of pests & diseases & crop losses, etc. A Training Course on Agripreneurship Development Programme on “Statistical Modelling in Agriculture with reference to Data Mining Techniques” (19th March to 24th March, 2018) organised by the ZTM-BPD of IARI.

The Zonal Technology Management and Business Promotion Development (ZTM-BPD) Unit is the one-stop show window of ICAR-IARI to connect public sector agri-technologies to the corporate world and medium and small enterprises (MSMEs) in a business mode giving due importance to the intellectual property management, commercialization and incubation. The aim is to encourage, protect, market and license the technologies developed by agricultural scientists to the industry with a focus on incubation process including Start-Ups and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO).

The journey of Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), popularly known as Pusa Institute, began in 1905 at Pusa (Bihar) with the generous grant of 30,000 pounds from an American philanthropist, Mr. Henry Phipps. The institute was then known as Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) which functioned with five departments, namely Agriculture, Cattle Breeding, Chemistry, Economic Botany and Mycology. Bacteriology unit was added in 1907. The name of ARI was changed to Imperial Institute of Agricultural Research in 1911 and, in 1919 it was renamed as Imperial Agricultural Research Institute. Following a devastating earth quake on 15th January 1934, the institute was shifted to Delhi on 29th July 1936. Post independence, the institute has been renamed as Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI).