Both institutions will collaborate to develop cutting-edge technologies to address value-chain issues in the agriculture sector throughout the country, leveraging their respective expertise.
Other areas of collaborative efforts include joint research and development projects, sustainable entrepreneurship development, and joint student research programmes.
"We believe that this unique collaboration between a digital technology institution and a leading agricultural research organisation will aid in the development of several innovative products to improve digital enablement and agriculture transformation," said Saji Gopinath, Vice-Chancellor of Digital University Kerala.
He stated that the research cooperation between Digital University Kerala and CTCRI is expected to leverage both institutions' strengths in order to conduct interdisciplinary research in digital agriculture and related areas.
"The collaboration entails CTCRI being recognised as a University-recognized research centre, having joint PhD students, and developing joint research projects among scientists and faculty members," he added.
CTCRI Director G Byju stated that the institute anticipates quite effective collaboration in PhD programmes as well as international and national research projects to build digital tools for sustainable natural resource management, disaster risk reduction, genomics, and phenomic studies.
“Tuber crops such as cassava, sweet potato, yams, elephant foot yam, and taro, among others, are climate resilient crops which have very great future and there are many researchable issues that will be addressed in collaboration with DUK,” he said.
As part of the signed MoU, Digital University Kerala will establish a DUK-recognized research centre at CTCRI, as well as various capacity-building programmes in digital technologies for workforce in agriculture sector.
