Agriculture is and will continue to be the main driver of country's economic growth with social justice. Our agriculture did extremely well and it was on the ascendancy till the mid nineties but after that the growth slowed down. Since 1996-97 the growth rate of agricultural GDP has been on an average, 1.75% per year in contrast with the rate of 4% that is required. On the other hand the farmer has been facing rising input costs, declining returns from the inputs uncertain market, increasing role of market in agriculture and blurring of distinction between the domestic market and the international market. To assist the farmer in these changing contexts, new strategies and innovative solutions are urgently required which in turn will require technological support. Hence the agricultural research system which generates technologies has to conduct the business of agricultural research in an innovative way. The World Bank aided National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) has been conceived to pilot this innovation in conducting agricultural research

The overall objective of the NAIP is to facilitate accelerated and sustainable transformation of Indian agriculture in support of poverty alleviation and income generation by collaborative development and application of agricultural innovations by the public research organisations in partnership with the private sector, the civil society organisations and other stakeholders

The NAIP functions through four components: (1) The ICAR as the Catalyzing Agent for the Management of Change in the Indian NARS; (2) Research on Production to Consumption Systems (PCS); (3) Research on Sustainable Rural Livelihood Security (SRLS); and (4) Basic and Strategic Research in the Frontier Areas of Agricultural Sciences (BSR).

Sustained flow of knowledge and innovations is essential to keep the technology development process responsive to the ever changing needs of agriculture. Investments must be made in basic and strategic research in the frontier areas of agricultural sciences to sustain this flow especially when knowledge has become a global commodity. The Component 4 aims at making such investments in those frontier science areas of agricultural research that are strategically important for Indian agriculture. An indicative list of thrust areas have been identified through a debate among national and international experts.

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