Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has for the first time decided to allow the private sector in joint research, while there are plans to take up collaborative projects in education for which detailed guidelines will be ready in the next two months.

Briefing media at the concluding day of the Foundation Day celebration, ICAR’s Director-General Himanshu Pathak said the research will be conducted jointly after an agreement is signed with a company and the technology once developed will be owned jointly by both ICAR and the private company. Any royalty from the distribution of technology will also be shared by both equally, he said.

Asked about the affordability of such technology for small and marginal farmers, which constitute 86 per cent of the farming population, he said there would not be any problem and it could be cheaper than what private companies offer when developed on their own. He stressed that the public sector research would also continue, parallelly and it will be an option for the private sector to collaborate.

MoU with 13 firms

The Director-General said the current programme of distribution of technology through private sector companies and the contract research programme would also continue. Technologies developed by ICAR are distributed through interested private companies who pay royalties to the institute whereas any private sector company may undertake a research through an ICAR institute by funding a programme with the rights over the technology for some fixed years, whenever it is developed.

ICAR announced on Tuesday that it has signed MoUs with 13 companies for the transfer of 17 technologies. In 2022-23, as many as 125 such MoUs were signed.

Agrinnovate India Limited (AgIn), the commercial arm of ICAR, acts as an interface between ICAR research institutes/NARS and various public/private stakeholders. The MoUs signed by AgIn on behalf of ICAR, will fetch the government ₹1.21 crore as license fees to b paid by the companies, officials said. “HT (Herbicide-tolerant) trait donor rice genotype” technology, developed by IARI (Pusa institute), has been transferred to Leadbeter Seeds (a subsidiary of Mahyco Grow). Two technologies for potato minitubers production — aeroponics technology and In-vitro plant acclimatisation technology, developed by CPRI, Shimla, has been transferred to UniAgri Biosciences of Punjab.

Gurugram-based IPL Biologicals has got technology for a novel method of storing and delivering PGPR/microbes through biocapsules, as well as another bioformulation technology entitled “CSR GROW-SURE- A Biomsart Bio-Consortia for Enhancing the Productivity of Agri-Horticultural Crops in Salt-Affected Soils” and also Bioformulation entitled ”Consortia Microbial Formulations for Salt Affected Soils: Halo-MIX”.

On the private participation in education and extension, officials said guidelines are yet to be framed and it may be finalised at the earliest.