Agricultural innovation: Fertile beginning

Updated on: Monday, January 09, 2012

The Agricultural Innovation Partnership aims at increasing farm productivity and providing food security in the Indo-Gangetic valley through collaborations between Indian and US universities. Education Times reports

The Indo-Gangetic valley is home to a large section of India's population that lives on less than Rs 50 per day. Being one of the most fertile regions , it has the potential of providing food security and increasing the prosperity of farmers . The Agricultural Innovation Partnership (AIP), started jointly by India and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2011, focuses on the Indo-Gangetic region. The AIP is a programme aimed at increasing farm productivity through better cropping practices and access to improved technologies and markets.

It is a collaborative effort between those Indian and US universities , which are pioneers in agriculture studies and research . Cornell University is the lead university from the US, with the University of Illinois, Ohio State University, University of California - Davis, Tuskegee University and the University of Georgia as partner-universities . On the Indian side, the Benaras Hindu University (BHU) is the lead university, along with state agricultural universities like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture & Technology, Meerut, and Rajendra Agricultural University , Pusa Samastipur.

"Trained professionals are needed to manage resources, fine-tune change and deal with the rapidly evolving needs of a country like India.

Times of India

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