5. Change the curricula in agricultural universities to ensure greater relevance.
- Curricula should be changed with a bottom-up approach to prepare students for careers in agri-businesses and agri-clinics, and to give them new skills in entrepreneurship development, communication skills, computer knowledge, agribusiness, environment science and biotechnology. This requires both the introduction of new courses and major reforms in the examination system.
- With the increasing feminisation of agriculture, it is very important that agricultural curriculum should be engendered by introducing basic courses on Gender Concerns in Agricultural Development.
- The system should be able to provide periodic (and more frequent) refresher training for extension workers to upgrade their technical efficiency.
- Non-formal education programmes should be initiated in need-based vocational modules to generate para-professionals for technological and economic empowerment of the rural youth.
6. Exploit the opportunities and meet the challenges of Intellectual Property Rights.
- Any licensing of IPR enabled technology by public research must be done without in any manner excluding its access by resource-poor farmers.
- As the holder of thousands of farmers’ varieties of plants and animal genetic stocks, the ICAR must immediately enunciate the policy and guidelines on the access to these materials by the private sector and the IPR related regulations applicable on the genetic material being accessed by these parties.
- There should be total transparency on all transfer or exchange of genetic material, and clear regulation to prevent private appropriation of farmers’ varieties and animal stocks by misusing IPRs within or outside country.
- The ICAR and SAUs must enunciated must lay down clear guidelines to ensure benefit sharing with farmers who have preserved genetic resources, with respect to themselves and also other commercial parties.
7. Encourage and regulate private agricultural research
- While private sector presence is rapidly increasing in biotechnology, critical input services and related areas, the thrust of private activity is on market-driven knowledge and services. Public-private partnerships should be leveraged to benefit resource poor farmers, who tend to have less access and to ensure that private research meets social needs.
- In the case of biotechnology and its application to crop plants and animals, particularly those in the food and feed chain, research on bio-safety aspects and processes leading to the release of such plant varieties in the environment should assume the highest priority, with transparency and civil society participation.
- Systems need to be developed to monitor the results of private research so as to avoid the problems associated with conflict of interest.
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