Fostering Academia-Industry Linkages in Agriculture

Agriculture in the country is the backbone of the economy and has a major contribution to the Gross Domestie Produet (GDP) of the country. Despite this, the sector suffers from some generie issues.

- = DR. PARVEEN KUMAR

Among those, lack of adequate linkages has been one of the major challenges affecting development of agriculture and overall economie growth of the country. Linkages in agriculture, particularly market linkages i. e both forward as well as backward are crucial for ensuring availability of critical inputs to the farming community, boosting farmer incomes and improving agricultural efficiency. By connecting farmers to markets, inputs and services, linkages help stabilize incomes, reduce post-harvest losses and fostering technology transfer. Market linkages help enhance market access to a wider range of markets including local, regional, national and international markets, allowing farmers to sell their produce at better prices and access specialized markets like niche products at a place other than place where it may not be produced without the physical presence of the producer. According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), this type of linkages further helps in stabilizing farmer's incomes by reducing price volatility and providing a more predictable supply chain. Besides development of appropriate linkages also help facilitate adoption of new technologies and best practices, leading to increased efficiency and productivity in agricultural production and also development of value chains in agriculture. Development of value chains involves all stages from production to consumption. Market linkages also come with an advantage of reduetion off post harvest losses by focusing on processing and value addition, storage and transportation infrastructure. Besides, appropriate linkages do help in transfer of technologies, dissemination of relevant information in time and promotion of sustainable agricultural practices. Linkages contribute to growth of agriculture and rural development effeetively as various researeh studies have highlighted that growth emanating from agriculture is many times more effective than the growth emanating from other sectors. Development