bhopal the madhya pradesh government is in the process of launching a venture fund to support agricultural research technologies patenting and scaling up of innovations in agritools in keeping with pm narendra modis call to make india selfreliant pm modi recently gave the vocal for local clarion call to help develop local technology manufacturing and businesses said to be the first such venture fund in the country the mp initiative is aimed at maximizing benefits to small and marginal farmers the cooperatives department has submitted a concept note on this to the chief ministers office agriculture gdp in madhya pradesh has increased by 109 per annum on average for the past eight years the highest in india and much higher than the national average of 43 mp has foundation for agri innovationfood production too has increased from 214 lakh mt in 200405 to 436 lakh mt in 201718 and is still riding the growth trajectory say officials conditions are ripe for the push to be selfreliantattention has to be taken on two parallel and complementing approaches to take the agriculture production system of the state to the next level said an official who is playing a key role in the new initiativefirst to promote prostate agriculture research both in institutional domain and entrepreneurial domain second to promote innovation in agritools technologies and practices for small and marginal farmers to support and standardize innovation he addedthe foundation for innovation is already there mp has two agricultural universities at jabalpur and gwalior and several colleges under them besides theres veterinary science university at jabalpur icar institutions like ciae and iiss at bhopal wheat research centre at powarkheda fisheries research station and 47 krishi vigyan kendras to strengthen agriculture technology transfer to farmersall these institutions work in their domain but in silos also there is lack of coordination among them to bring out the best result of the research that can represent and cover the whole geography of the state this leads to truncated growth and development in agriculture and allied sectors said the officer pointing out that most research remains confined to journals more support can be given to marginal farmers by encouraging them to redesign tools farm machinery and practices the concept plan hopes to reduce cost of cultivation by at least by 2030the cooperatives department has suggested that the government establish venture funds in financial institutions so that projects related to tools practices and technology development can be financed at a very low cost of interestventure capital will also support patenting of the process and products developed by their financial support this fund would be supervised by a committee consisting of agriculturehorticulture agriculture engineering nabard banks and innovators in agriculture said the officer