Top agricultural research institutions have joined hands to start the National Virtual Academy for Indian Agriculture to promote massive open online courses for agriculture professionals.

It was formally launched at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) here. The institute is leading the initiative with other partners.

This is part of the new global education consortium, One Agriculture – One Science ( >http://www.oneagriculture.org ).

“This consortium is an international partnership between Icrisat and top agricultural universities, research organisations and other related agencies from India, Africa and the USA working towards revitalising global agricultural education, capacity building and technology transfer to address the challenges of global food and nutritional security,” Dr William Dar, Director General, ICRISAT, said here in a statement on Friday.

The MOOCs will be offered through the online platform built on an open source software ‘Open edX’.