Agricultural research rarely goes beyond production of new technologies and its pilot testing in few select villages. Promoting wider application of the new knowledge it has produced is considered as someone else’s responsibility. This artificial separation has effectively constrained agricultural research from learning about the challenges in promoting large scale adoption of new technologies and also its other potential roles in the innovation process. The sustainable rural livelihoods project recently implemented by the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA) is an exception to this general trend as it was about promoting technological changes at a large scale through development of appropriate institutional arrangements. Dr Sreenath Dixit who played a major role in this initiative reflects on its process and outcomes as well as some of the lessons in this blog.
Dr Sreenath Dixit is with the Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad and is currently coordinating a nation‐wide project on promoting strategies towards climate resilient agriculture (Email: sreenathd@yahoo.com). The opinions expressed by the author are his personal ones and not necessarily those of the organisation he represents
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