The Hindu Business Line : Icrisat setting up $5.25 m bio-food knowledge centre

Hyderabad, March 20 A $5.25 million Bio-Food Knowledge Centre (BFKC), with participation of corporates and institutes, will be established by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat).

The Icrisat is also in the process of setting up the Centre for Excellence in Genomics (CEG), with a financial support of $1 million from the Union Department of Biotechnology (DBT).

Making these announcements, the Director-General of Icrisat, Dr William Dar, told newspersons today that the BFKC would be a public-private partnership venture in the Agri-Science Park at the Icrisat campus, with major support from the Andhra Pradesh Government.

Corporate interest

The State has sanctioned a support of $500,000 to the venture. Interest in the venture has come from the Yes Bank, corporates such as ITC and Nandan Biometrix etc.

The Icrisat has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Crop and Food Research, a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand.

“We would work together to develop the BFKC. Discussions to leverage New Zealand’s expertise in agri science have been undertaken for accelerating the commissioning.

“The objective is to completely develop the Centre in 5 years with $ 5.25 m outlay”, Dr Dar said.

R&D platform

The BFKC aims to develop a platform for R&D, innovation, technology transfer and commercialisation in food processing with focus on cereals, legumes, fruits and vegetables.

It would have pilot facilities, create knowledge with no commercial intent but supporting innovation and start ups, said Mr Raveen K. Reddy, Secretary, Biotechnology of the AP Government.

Dr Barry Shapiro, Managing Director of the Agri Science Park, said new products and new business that would benefit farmers and entrepreneurs would be taken up at BKC.

For example, the areas of nutraceuticals, fortified products and beverages will be prime focus.

Database

The CEG, on the other hand, has been equipped with high throughput, low cost equipment, which will help create useful genetic databases and finally reduce the development cycles and thus costs on developing new varieties by half, which in turn, benefit farmers.

The CEG would also provide training for building the capacity of Indian and developing country scientists.

Already, 19 scientists from the Indian Council for Agriculture Research Institutes are undergoing training.

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