In partnership with Beanstalk AgTech and IFAD, Grow Asia has launched the Grow Asia Innovation Challenge. With generous support from Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs, this initiative aims to bring climate-smart innovations and digital solutions to smallholder farmers across Southeast Asia.

Why This Matters

Southeast Asia is home to over 70 million agri-SMEs, and the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economy is crucial for the region. However, only a small fraction of these farmers have access to digital technologies. Together, Grow Asia aims to change that. By introducing scalable, market-ready digital solutions, Grow Asia can help farmers improve productivity, gain better market access, and enhance climate resilience.

Join Us in Making a Difference

If you’re passionate about leveraging technology to drive sustainability in agriculture, join the Grow Asia Innovation Challenge! 

Submit your digital solutions and become a part of this transformative journey. Selected innovators will have the chance to showcase their solutions at the Grow Asia Investment Forum on 16 October 2024 and participate in their human-centered design training programs. 

For more information, visit: Grow Asia Innovation Challenge.

Grow Asia is also seeking best-fit strategic partners who will ensure this program delivers maximum benefit – for smallholders and agri-SMEs in Southeast Asia. Connect with Mr Pranav Rastogi (Head, Communications) at pranavrastogi@growasia.org for partnership options.

Agribusiness incubation plays a key role in creating and nurturing viable agricultural entrepreneurships involving diverse stakeholders. Currently, agribusiness incubation is campus bound, offering cohort-based pre-incubation and other incubation services. This strategy has an inherent limitation of leaving out grassroot incubation, something that has always been associated with agricultural value chains. With this in mind the Agri-Business Incubator of the ICAR-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (ICAR-CTCRI ABI) has developed the concept of Satellite Incubation Centres – a collaborative system for decentralising incubation services to the grassroot level. From 2021, the ICAR-CTCRI ABI has built a strong network of Satellite Incubation Centres (SIC) for serving agripreneurs, farmers’ collectives, startups and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the southern, eastern and north-eastern Indian states. The SICs were developed in collaboration with agricultural and veterinary universities and established in states or district level units.

Apart from enhancing the income of agripreneurs and startups and generating jobs and agricultural person days, the SICs have successfully created innovative value chains, such as the biofortified sweet potato value chain for combating malnutrition. In this Good Practice Note the authors – P Sethuraman Sivakumar, M Nedunchezhiyan, Mahesh B Tengli, D Thirunavukkarasu, B Shanmugasundaram, Saravanan Raju, C Sharmila Bharathi, Ashok Chhetri, CR Sasikumar, G Byju, Gayathri BR and Athira Krishnan LR – reflect on their experience with conceptualising and implementing SICs with diverse stakeholders in different regions of India. They highlight the need to decentralise the agribusiness incubation process to directly address value chain-based problems through pluralistic institutional innovations, such as SICs.

Download from here

For the previous notes:

 

Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 1
Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 2

Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 3

Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 4

Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 5

The creation of Competitive Research Grants (CRGs) is globally recognized as an institutional innovation for improving the effectiveness of agricultural research. Unlike block grants for research, CRGs are expected to bring in many top-quality proposals from a wide range of actors, selecting the best out of them and thus getting more value for money. The Government of Bangladesh established the Krishi Gobeshona Foundation (KGF) in 2007 as an agency to administer and promote competitive research grants in agriculture. Beyond this, KGF was also tasked with building partnerships and strengthening research capacities. Over the last 15 years, KGF has funded 10 basic research proposals and 260 Competitive Grant Proposals (CGPs). It has also supported several short-term projects/studies. KGF, over the years, has also promoted pluralism in agricultural research and multi-institutional research functioning. Along the way, it also made several changes in its governance, and rules related to grant making as well as management processes. In this Good Practice Note, Dr Wais Kabir, reflects on the performance of KGF over the years, its success and challenges and he draws several lessons for all those who are trying to initiate and promote CRGs in agriculture.

Download from here

For the previous notes:

Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 1
Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 2

Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 3

Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 4

Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) and short organic supply chains have emerged as promising solutions for smallholder farmers to provide organic produce to nearby consumers. PGS is an institutional innovation that builds trust among producers, traders and consumers through a low-cost transparent and participatory certification mechanism. They have particularly gained a foothold among smallholder farmers in middle-income countries, where third-party certification costs are often unaffordable.

In Vietnam, PGS schemes have now been set up in more than seven provinces in Vietnam (Ha Noi, Ha Nam, Hoa Binh, Tuyen Quang, Cao Bang, Ben Tre, and Hoi An). With training and coaching by the Vietnam Organic Agriculture Association (VOAA), at least five other local governments have expressed their intention to set up organic PGS groups in their respective provinces. Nevertheless, the local organic sector in Vietnam has grown slowly in recent years. PGS-certified vegetable production in Vietnam is generally more profitable and sustainable compared to non-certified production. However, it is constrained by crop productivity challenges and requires higher returns to labour.
In this Good Practice Note, Christian Grovermann, Pham Van Hoi, Pierre Ferrand and Robert Home reflect on the lessons learned from implementing PGS in Vietnam.

Download from here

For the previous notes:
Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 1
Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 2

Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 3

 

The Korea National University of Agriculture and Fisheries (KNUAF)’s innovative program is helping South Korea overcome issues relating to its ageing rural population while simultaneously developing elite human resources to establish and promote a highly competent agriculture sector. Since its inception, the KNUAF has been producing young highly competent professionals to manage its high tech agriculture either as entrepreneurs or farm managers. KNUAF has developed a unique program that selects youth who are willing to take up farming and fisheries, provides them hands on experience with farming, support them in establishing a startup of their choice and provide continued support for another 7-10 years after they graduate. This holds several lessons for countries trying to attract and retain their youth in agriculture, says Dr. Song Yong-sup in this Good Practice Note.

Download from here

For the previous notes:
Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 1
Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 2

Holding a vision of Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE), and with a target of net-zero carbon emission by 2070, India plans to usher in a green industrial and economic transition through a movement with an environmentally conscious lifestyle. One of the credible options for a continuous, predictable, accessible and cost-free green energy source is solar power. In the agricultural sector, one of the key innovations in promoting solar irrigation was the initiation of the world’s first ever Solar Cooperative – Dhundi Solar Energy Producers’ Cooperative Society (DSEPCS) – in Gujarat, India. It addressed several key issues challenging the promotion of solar irrigation by creating a conducive environment, attracting investment, providing technical and consulting services, building capabilities among member farmers, connecting to Madhya Gujarat Vidyut Company (MGVCL) to buy back surplus solar energy, and ensuring an additional source of income for farmers in the region. This helped in popularizing and promoting the use of solar water pumps for bringing irrigation efficiency in the region and replacing electric and diesel pump sets. This intervention has the potential to save a significant amount of power subsidies and to provide additional income to the farming community. In this Good Practice Note, KK Tripathy and SK Wadkar discuss this notable institutional innovation.

Download from here

For the previous notes:
Good Practice Note on Institutional Innovations 1

Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) and short organic supply chains have emerged as promising solutions for smallholder farmers to provide organic produce to nearby consumers. PGS is an institutional innovation that builds trust among producers, traders and consumers through a low-cost transparent and participatory certification mechanism. They have particularly gained a foothold among smallholder farmers in middle-income countries, where third-party certification costs are often unaffordable.

In Vietnam, PGS schemes have now been set up in more than seven provinces in Vietnam (Ha Noi, Ha Nam, Hoa Binh, Tuyen Quang, Cao Bang, Ben Tre, and Hoi An). With training and coaching by the Vietnam Organic Agriculture Association (VOAA), at least five other local governments have expressed their intention to set up organic PGS groups in their respective provinces. Nevertheless, the local organic sector in Vietnam has grown slowly in recent years. PGS-certified vegetable production in Vietnam is generally more profitable and sustainable compared to non-certified production. However, it is constrained by crop productivity challenges and requires higher returns to labour.
In this Good Practice Note, Christian Grovermann, Pham Van Hoi, Pierre Ferrand and Robert Home reflect on the lessons learned from implementing PGS in Vietnam.

Download from here

CIRAD and ASEA have announced that the ICBPSA23 – International Conference on BioProtection for Sustainable Agriculture is taking place on 26th-28th July, 2023, in Can Tho, Vietnam.

The conference will bring together scientists and stakeholders involved in improving crop protection. Its agenda comprises 01 day of plenary sessions, 01 day of parallel sessions and 01 day of field visits. This is an opportunity to share experiences in the field of bioprotection with participants from different parts of the world.

The conference is organised by 5 universities in Vietnam and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD). It is financed by CIRAD and the platform in partnership ASEA . It also received great support from the French Embassy in Vietnam, as a part of the  activity series to mark 50 year of Vietnam-France diplomatic ties.

Participation is free of charge, and participants are invited to submit oral or poster papers in English. Internationally renowned personalities in the field of bioprotection will give keynote lectures during the plenary session.

More details on ICBPSA23 First announcement.

A second announcement will soon give more precise information on registration, abstract submission and deadlines.