Centre for Innovation in Sustainable Development (CISD)

We have partnered with Syngenta Foundation India (SFI) to study and research their flagship initiative Agri-Entrepreneurship (AE) programme.  The AE Model aims to develop and anchor self-sustainable Agri-Entrepreneurs to provide agriculture services to smallholder farmers, generating rural employment, improving agricultural incomes and practices, and furthering environmental sustainability. CISD will investigate the initiative to generate teaching-learning material, knowledge production, and policy issues for advocacy in the public interest. A research is underway to assess the efficacy of the AE training programme, particularly with regard to women. The focus is to understand how the AE training programme contributes to the development of an entrepreneurial attitude.

SPJIMR’s CISD has partnered with Ivy Cap ventures and Ivy Camp to provide students with exposure on evaluating startups for investment in the Agritech space. The engagement involves activities including an interactive session to discuss investment criteria, evaluation of startups in the Agritech space, and discussions with Agritech startup founders to understand key factors that affect technology-related decisions in the Agritech space.

CISD has partnered with Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI), supported by Tata Trusts, to study and research on their flagship initiative, Lakhpati Kisan. The engagement involves academic scholars, including SPJIMR Faculty, conducting research on various dimensions of Lakhpati Kisan, including women empowerment, technology integration, income increase through livelihoods layering, community institutions, and key policy perspectives.

CISD has established a collaboration with Mahindra and Mahindra Limited to partner on activities focused on agri-business technologies, and entrepreneurship. In the first engagement, Mahindra and Mahindra has commissioned two projects for SPJIMR students to learn about Business Process Evaluation of agri models in the Agri-tech space, as well as evaluation of technologies used by Agri-tech Startups.

CISD has collaborated with the Pune Knowledge Cluster Foundation (PKCF) towards the aim of making the SPJIMR campus carbon neutral. The engagement started with formation of ‘Carbon Neutral Campus (CNC)’ team within SPJIMR, and initial orientation/training to work towards establishing the baseline status of the SPJIMR campus on Carbon neutrality.

Sushmita Srivastav and Lijo John

Agriculture based interventions directed towards sustainable income and livelihood have been of utmost importance for governments, policy makers and farmer communities across the world. Lakhpati Kisan Smart village programme undertaken by Tata Trusts with its nodal agency CInI, in India, has covered more than a lakh household in the Tribal belts of India. It has substantially improved incomes to cross INR 100,000 per annum (and therefore lakhpati) for more than 50% of the farmer households. This paper seeks to study how LKP operationalized this multi-pronged approach resulting in increase in the house-hold income and to arrive at a holistic understanding of the programme. This study has been done with extensive interactions with various LKP stakeholders in the State of Gujarat, India. The paper has been accepted for presentation at an international conference shortly.

Sushmita Srivastav and Lijo John

Although India has over 8000 FPCs- an Apex community-led intervention of farmers, only 3% are Women FPCs. This despite the fact that 85% of agricultural farmers in India are women and they contribute significantly to the rural economy of the country, mostly as farm labourers. Mainstreaming women farmers into institutions like the FPC is more likely to lead to better utilization of resources that would contribute to livelihood. This study focuses on how LKP has facilitated the women to play a critical role in FPCs in achieving sustainable livelihood – not only in increasing agricultural income but also improving the quality of life through improved agricultural and livestock practices. Some of the outcomes would be centred around the critical underlying factors in identifying role of women in low income Agri-communities for creating sustainable and inclusive growth through formal institutions such as FPCs.

Sushmita Srivastav and Lijo John

This paper is based on a comparative study of two States, Gujarat and Jharkhand in India, where the Lakhpati Kisan programme has been introduced to achieve sustainable income and break poverty traps. It seeks to answer the question of how the same programme with same operational capability has varied outcomes in different geographies. The paper also delves into the softer aspects of regional economic variations such as socio, economic, cultural and political factors, amongst others.

Mihir Ajgaonkar and Tanvi Mankodi

Tata Trusts and CINI have focused on the development of the marginal farmers from the tribal belt in India, with an objective to uplift their livelihood under the programme” Lakhpati Kisan”.

The programme leaders of the “Lakhpati Kisan” have designed various interventions for the improvement in the economic status of these farmers through women empowerment. This teaching case study explores the sustainability of leadership dimensions of these interventions in the context of the overall social objectives of the “Lakhpati Kisan” programme.

The data for this teaching case have been collected through in-depth qualitative interviews and through secondary sources from the records of CINI and the public domain. This case is in progress.

The teaching case would be useful for teaching leadership frameworks in the Organizational Behaviour courses in the Master of Business Administration and other post-graduate management and executive education programmes.