NIABI 2012, the 2nd global conference on agribusiness incubation, aims to promote the concept of agricultural development through agribusiness and looks at how entrepreneurship can be the focal point in developing strategies to address the many challenges faced by the agricultural sector.

Globally, it has been seen that entrepreneurship plays a critical role to the development and well-being of society as it create jobs, drives and shapes innovation and brings in competition which in turn improves productivity. Entrepreneurship thus acts as a catalyst for economic growth and national competitiveness. Agriculture needs to move away from traditional subsistence mode and should be promoted as a business activity; agri-startups and entrepreneurship needs to be nurtured since it has the potential to improve livelihood of the people, enhance food and nutritional security, and speed up economic growth of the country.

Agribusiness incubators play a vital role in supporting such agri start-ups by taking care of risks in the initial years, providing much needed scientific, financial and infrastructural assistance, and equipping the start-ups to stand on their own in the market. Agribusiness incubators also help in fostering an ecosystem for innovation-led agricultural sector and benefits agri R&D institutes in their technology commercialisation activities.

The inaugural global conference on agribusiness and business incubation, NIABI 2011 was the first step towards developing a roadmap for this. Held at ICRISAT in March 2011, 120 participants comprising of agricultural research scientists, agripreneurs, industry representatives, funding agencies, and policy makers from across 10 countries used this platform to deliberate on the means for agribusiness ventures and business incubators to help transform the sector.

The second edition of the global conference, NIABI 2012 is another step in understanding the finer details of agribusiness and its incubation. We expect the conference to bring more clarity in the evolving field of agribusiness and agribusiness incubation, make improvements for more efficient transfer of technology, enable further cross functional linkages and integrate all of them to create an ecosystem for the creation of more such agribusiness ventures and incubators that can ultimately benefit the farmers and the rural community and provide for a focussed, inclusive approach to revamp agricultural systems across the world.

If agribusiness is your passion, then this is one event that you should not miss!