NCML, ICRISAT join hands for activities under agri business innovation platform

NEW DELHI: To help smallholder farmers achieve market linkages and nurture innovations to stabilize, safeguard and enhance their livelihoods, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and National Collateral Management Services Limited (NCML) signed a Memorandum of Understanding.

The partnership aims to develop a framework to enable smallholder farmers to access markets and get the right price for their produce.

This partnership will enable co-operation on knowledge support, exchange of relevant information and development of joint projects to be utilised for agri-business activities and also scientific and business publications. ICRISAT is the country's leading agri-research institute and NCML is a major agri-infrastructure player.

The MoU signed by ICRISAT director William D. Dar was exchanged between Sanjay Kaul, MD & CEO, NCML and Saikat Datta Mazumdar, COO, Nutriplus Knowledge Program of ICRISAT's Agribusiness and Innovation Platform (AIP).

As a part of this agreement, AIP shall closely work with NCML to develop a framework to work towards facilitating and promoting innovative agri-food processing technologies and primary processing, create value added products, food product testing and training, surveys, quality control, quality assurance and documentation and practices to deal with contamination in food commodities.