ABSTRACT
A proactive policy by the Government of India towards agricultural research and development (R&D), coupled with support from a number of bilateral and multilateral donors, has produced an institutionally diverse research system that has achieved many successes, most notably the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. Private sector R&D investment is driven by business goals alone and is in hybrids and high-value crops like potato, tomato, chilli and mentha, and in dairy in Punjab. There may be several causes for a decline in performance in this sector, but we have confined ourselves to addressing the policy issues and challenges in agricultural R&D. It may be noted here that agricultural R&D has a special role to play in this activity, as it can significantly influence product quality—an important consideration in contract farming. The prioritisation of research agenda for commercial agriculture like that in Punjab is rather challenging and requires a paradigm shift from a foodgrain production-oriented system to commercial agriculture.
