Agricultural research and education: new ideology and innovations

India has one of the largest agricultural research and education systems in the world. Thanks to the foresight and vision of our planners and policy makers that they have given priority to it by substantial funding support. It has significantly contributed to increasing agricultural production through several breakthroughs in technologies beginning with the green revolution. But there has been criticism in recent years about its inability to give major breakthroughs in the yields of staple cereals (rice & wheat), pulses and oilseeds as well as reorient itself to the fast-changing agriculture development context. In other words, it is criticized to be inefficient, if not fully irrelevant. This is attributed to some structural faults like the drifting of research, extension and education from one another, institutional proliferation, design rigidities like too much focus on production, the dominance of genetic enhancement in neglect of alternative options, centralization, HRD failures (quantity and quality), bureaucratization, poor and ineffective M & E system, poor sustainability of efforts after the existence of every mega external project assistance, distance/disconnect from clients and no/less dialogue with policy makers, stakeholders and the public at large. To overcome some of these structural faults, the system is pursuing new ideologies and innovations through fresh initiatives to put research into more use for promoting livelihood security and commerce in agriculture, strengthen basic and strategic research in frontier areas of agricultural sciences, and accessing scientific advances and knowledge explosion taking place in developed countries. The lecture commemorating the contributions and human qualities of Prof. L.S. Venkataraman provides details of three such fresh initiatives, namely the national agricultural innovation project, National fund for basic and strategic research in frontier areas of agricultural sciences, and Indo-US Knowledge initiatives in agriculture.