Dr S Ayyappan, secretary, department of agriculture research (DARE) and director general, Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) inaugurated the Agri-Tech Investors Meet-2013 at NASC Complex here today. While delivering inaugural address, he emphasized upon the Indian Agriculture as the largest private enterprises run by 65 crore farmers serving a huge consumer base of 125 crore people. Today agriculture is a broad-based and complex system due to climate change and trade related issues. However, the system has a huge business potential to explore. In the ICAR system we are moving ahead from the primary to secondary agriculture offering advisories and services from seed to market, he said.

Elaborating upon the various successful partnerships with private sector, he reiterated on the integration of innovation with incubation of technologies. In partnerships, we transfer trust and confidence along with the technologies, he added. Dr. Ayyappan called this event as innovators and investors meet and wished the event all success.

Earlier, Dr D. Rama Rao, National Director, NAIP welcomed the dignitaries, participants and investors and outlined the programme of two-day Meet (18-19th July, 2013). He informed that more than 300 participants and delegates are participating in the event in which around 60 technologies are presented for commercialization. In the six technical sessions technologies with business potential will be presented and deliberated upon. Exclusive B2B meetings with technology developers will help further strengthen the

Arvind R. Kaushal, Additional Secretary, DARE and Secretary, ICAR said in his remarks, this event is a befitting and quick response to the advice of Hon'ble President of India who stressed the importance of commercialization and dissemination of R&D results during his 85th ICAR Foundation Day Lecture (16th July, 2013). He appreciated the NAIP for catalyzing basic and strategic research with innovation as an integral part of the process.

Deepak Ahluwalia, Task Team Leader and Senior Economist, World Bank appreciated the innovative approach of BPD units and urged ICAR to also move towards making Indian Agriculture visible on global platform.

Dr. S. Mauria, ADG, IP&TM, ICAR; Dr. K.V. Balasubramaniam, MD, Indian Immunologicals Ltd.; Dr. Arvind Kapoor, CEO, Rasi Seeds Pvt. Ltd. and Dr. P.S. Pandey, National Coordinator, Component-1, NAIP also remarked and presented their views on the occasion.

Dignitaries released a Compendium of NAIP technologies having potential for wide scale commercialization. Concurrently an exhibition is also arranged to showcase promising NAIP technologies.

Agri-Tech Investors, Business Planning and Development Units, ICAR Institutes, Private enterprises and Senior officials from NARS and other related departments are participating in the event. The event is being jointly organized by ICAR-NAIP and ICRISAT.

Dr. Kiran K Sharma, Chief Executive Officer - Agribusiness and Innovation Platform, ICRISAT lauded the role of ICAR in brining different stakeholders together and also proposed vote of thanks.