BHOOCHETANA: Innovative Institutional Partnerships to Boost Productivity of Rainfed Agriculture in Karnataka, India

Abstract

Although there has been a considerable development in publicprivate partnership in developing countries, there are very few examples of multiinstitutional partnership for transferring agricultural technologies to smallholders. This paper discusses the example of innovative partnership in Karnataka, where the consortium of state and nonstate actors helping to transform subsistence dryland agriculture into a sustainable business model through promoting propoor agricultural technologies for bridging the yield gaps. The paper demonstrated the usefulness of the partnership concept in guiding investments to support the development of agricultural technology and helping to halve the poverty. It also shows effective convergence of funds and various schemes of federal and state governments besides utilizing semiskilled manpower as local extension agents. The paper concludes that with a strong partnership between global scientific organizations and state and nonstate actors can offer a route to equitable growth in developing countries. This approach has enabled scaleup of this program to neighboring two states of South India.