Surinder Sud: From lab to farm

Publicly funded R&D is finally finding a commercial outlet

The role of the market in agricultural technology transfer has not been fully appreciated in the past. Commercialising the outcome of research conducted with public funds, as is largely the case in India, was deemed an anathema till recently. As a result, many new technologies and products that required manufacturing or mass multiplication could not reach the farmers and other intended users. This was true since much of the improved seeds, especially those of the non-cereal crops that the public sector seed agencies produced, seldom multiplied. This was also true of several other farm inputs, livestock vaccines, diagnostic kits, new equipment and other items.

Thankfully, the outmoded mindset has now changed, giving way to a calculated bid to reach out to potential entrepreneurs to serve as conduits for technology flow from farm research centres to farmers. This, indeed, is a big and welcome leap forward by the public-funded National Agricultural Research System comprising the research units of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and state agricultural universities. The obvious objective is to ensure that the results of research should not remain buried in research journals but should actually be gainfully utilised in the fields.

With this end in view, ICAR is creating institutions mandated specifically to upgrade and incubate farm technologies to a commercially-viable scale and licensing them to prospective investors. Most farm research institutes have set up technology management units for this purpose. Besides, 10 technology incubation centres and business planning and development units have been established to scout for potentially marketable technologies evolved at various research centres for passing them on to potential entrepreneurs.

A significant recent initiative in this direction was the rise of Agrinnovate in 2011 - a company owned by the agriculture ministry's department of agricultural research and education (virtually the ICAR) and incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956. This commercial body fosters public-private, public-public and private-private partnerships for the manufacturing and marketing of research-based agricultural products on a profit-sharing basis.

Of course, some ICAR research institutes are already producing and marketing their innovative products, such as vaccines, diagnostic kits and so on, and have managed to establish credible brands as well. But, for this, these centres have to shoulder additional burden of looking after business operations for which they often lack expertise. Besides, they face several other constraints, the most significant among them being the want of market intelligence and know-how for the costing and pricing of technologies and products. Such issues can be addressed by a commercial entity such as Agrinnovate.

The need for creating business wings in research organisations or, for that matter, exclusive technology transfer companies such as Agrinnovate arises also because of the growing importance of securing intellectual property rights (IPRs). More and more innovations are now being patented globally. ICAR institutes that used to seek very few patents for their new technologies earlier are now turning increasingly IPR-savvy. In 2001, only 11 ICAR institutes sought patents for 34 technologies and products; in the current year as many as 55 institutes have filed around 1,600 applications for intellectual property protection. This number is set to swell with time.

Agrinnovate has already been instrumental in setting up a modern plant for producing the much-in-demand vaccine for the dreaded foot-and-mouth (F&M) ailment of livestock at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute's Yelahanka campus in Bangalore. This public-private partnership enterprise will operate on a revenue-sharing basis and will give preference to supplying the vaccines to the public agencies for use under their F&M eradication campaign. Similarly, to meet the growing demand for oil-palm seedlings for the upcoming plantations, Agrinnovate has licensed the relevant technology to a private entrepreneur on a non-exclusive basis. According to Agrinnovate Chief Executive Officer M M Pandey, the association of this company with its partners does not end, but actually begins, with the licensing agreement. The company remains committed to providing all the technical backing and handholding required to refine the technology and take it to the farmers' fields.

It is, thus, clear that agricultural technology diffusion will get much-needed impetus as more entrepreneurs join hands with the business promotion units of farm research organisations. The ultimate beneficiaries would be both farmers and consumers.

surinder.sud@gmail.com