At the Prolinnova Oversight Group (POG) meeting in Tanzania in late March 2011, a proposal from INHERE (Institute of Himalayan Environmental Research and Education) was accepted to initiate a Prolinnova platform in India. INHERE will carry out a series of multi-stakeholder consultations for developing regional collaborative action plans to promote agricultural research and innovation for development in different agro-ecological zones of India. It seeks full participation and voice for smallholders in research and policymaking on agriculture, leading to prosperity for resource-poor agriculture producers. This means recognition of their knowledge and innovation efforts, proper use of public funds and increase in net income of poor producers. Workshops in different zones of the country will be held to create awareness of farmer innovation and to initiate multi-stakeholder collaboration to promote farmer-led participatory innovation development (PID) based on issues of relevance and interest to smallholders in the respective zones. Lead organisations of the core groups in each zone that are facilitating this collaboration will come together to form a task force at national level.
Funding for the activities will be sought in-country as well as from international donors. It is expected that, over time, public funds available for national research institutions and programmes will be tapped, once the collaborative action gains momentum and becomes institutionalised.
The initiative is spearheaded by Ms Sonali Bisht, Director of INHERE. She was also recently named by the CSO Group on Agricultural Research for Development (CSO-GARD) as the NGO person on the organising group for the next Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD), to be held in Uruguay in October 2012.
