Agri Business Incubators in Agripreneurial Ecosystem Development of Kerala

Abstract

Agri Business Incubator (ABI) have emerged as a vibrant institutional innovation for entrepreneurship development world wide. The ABIs established in the ICAR institutions in the State focus on their mandate areas such as plantation crops, tuber crops, spices and fishery products. Being the pioneer institution in agriculture and allied sectors, Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) established network of ABIs for transforming the budding agribusiness ideas into viable technology based product or service. This venture would help to revive the agriculture sector through scaling up and commercialisation of the innovative products. Since its inception in 2014, KAU-ABIs act as a platform to bring entrepreneurs together for conducting a collective and collaborative effort to explore opportunities to strengthen the agrarian economy. This paper portrays the incubation process of KAU- ABI network in harnessing the resources for establishing conducive ecosystem for the growth of the agripreneurs in Kerala.