Promoting Start Ups in Agriculture Sector

This Ministry has launched a component called “Innovation and Agri-Entrepreneurship Development” under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY-RAFTAAR) in 2018-19 with objective to promote innovation and agri-entrepreneurship by providing financial support and nurturing the incubation ecosystem. In this connection, this Ministry has appointed five Knowledge Partners (KPs) as Centre of Excellence and twenty four RKVY-RAFTAAR Agribusiness Incubators (R-ABIs) from across the country for implementation of this programme.    So far, 646 start-ups in the agriculture and allied sectors have been supported under “Innovation and Agri-Entrepreneurship Development” programme for funding of a sum of Rs. 69.92 crore in installments and Rs. 33.94 crore has been released to respective KPs and RABIs for funding these start-ups.

Besides, Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) has been supporting Agri-based startups under the project called National Agriculture Innovation Fund (NAIF) initiated in year 2016-2017.  It has two components viz. I. Innovation Fund; II. Incubation Fund and National Coordinating Unit (NCU).

Component I : Zonal Technology Management Units (10) and Institute Technology Management Units (ITMUs)(89) established in 99 ICAR institutes provide a single-window mechanism to manage the innovations, showcase the intellectual assets, and pursue matters related to intellectual property (IP) management and transfer/commercialization of technologies in the institutes.

Component II of setting up Agri-business Incubator Centres are designed to speed up the delivery of the new technologies to the stake holders. The Agri-business Incubator Centres are the nodal point to provide the desired link for the Agriculture Research &Development ( R&D ) Institutions for incubation/ commercialization of the validated technologies. So far, 50 Agri-Business Incubation Centres (ABICs) have been established and are operational in ICAR network under NAIF scheme.

This information was given by Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.