ICAR-CTCRI Agribusiness Incubation (ABI) Centre

Before you plan around this centre

• Check that it is open to you. The ABI page publishes no eligibility rules, application form or intake dates. Ask whether it takes founders from outside the institute's own network.
• Ask what is charged. The page does not say whether incubation is free or paid, or whether the centre takes equity. Get this in writing before you commit.
• Ask where you would sit. The ABI is on the institute's campus in Sreekariyam. Its satellite centres are in Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Tripura.

Who it fits

• Ventures built on tropical tuber crops: planting material, eco-friendly and smart farming, and nutrition and health products.
• Agripreneurs and farmers' collectives. The centre names the Nutriseed Farmer Scheme, Product Plus and Capacity Plus for them.
• Students. The centre names School Connect and the Certified Agritech startup Professional scheme.

How to reach them

• The ABI has no inbox of its own. The ABI page header shows director.ctcri@icar.org.in, which is the Director's office inbox for the whole institute.
• The institute's telephone is (+91)(471) 2598551 to 2598554. Say you are asking about the Agribusiness Incubation Centre.
• Write to the institute at Sreekariyam P.O., Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 695017.

If you make tuber-based food products

The institute's separate Techno Incubation Centre has its own page and processing units for flour, snacks and chips. Ask whether you can use it, and whether the ABI can refer you.

The Agribusiness Incubation (ABI) Centre is the incubator of ICAR-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (ICAR-CTCRI) in Sreekariyam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. It was established in 2019 to create agri-businesses through technology provision, skill upgradation and incubation, built on tropical tuber crops such as cassava and sweet potato.

The ABI is a unit of the institute, not a separate company. Its own page says it works in four areas: production of quality planting materials, eco-friendly farming, smart farming, and nutrition and health. This page covers the incubation centre only, not the institute's research.

What the centre does

The ABI says it trains and builds capacity for prospective entrepreneurs in the agribusiness ecosystem. It reports that 763 agripreneurs, entrepreneurs, students, startups, FPCs, SHGs, MSME and big companies were trained in business-related areas. That figure is the centre's own, and it gives no date for it.

It also lists how many people were enrolled in four of its programmes: Startup Incubation, 10; Nutriseed farmers, 32; School connect, 55 students; and the Certified Agritech startup Professional scheme, 136 students. These counts are also self-reported and undated. The centre groups its programmes by audience: startups, agripreneurs and farmers' collectives, and students. For startups it names Startup Incubation, Industry Connect and the Certified Agtech Startup Professional Scheme. For agripreneurs and farmers' collectives it names the Nutriseed Farmer Scheme, Product Plus and Capacity Plus. For students it names School Connect. The centre does not describe what each of these includes.

Satellite Incubation Centres

The ABI describes its Satellite Incubation Centre (SIC) as a collaborative value-chain entrepreneurship model. It has developed three:

• a centre in the cassava region of Tamil Nadu, at KVK Kallakurichi under TANUVAS
• a centre in the sweet potato region, at the institute's regional centre in Bhubaneswar, Odisha
• a centre in the multiple tuber crops belt, at the College of Fisheries, Central Agricultural University (Imphal), Lembucherra, Tripura

The centre says the SIC model was recognised by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations as an Institutional Innovation model and published as a working paper in 2023. That is the ABI's own statement.

Who can apply

The ABI page does not publish eligibility rules, an application form, an intake calendar or a programme brochure. We could not find one anywhere on the institute's site. It does not say whether outside founders or only partners and trainees of the institute can join, whether incubation is paid, or whether the centre takes equity. Treat the centre as a facility attached to a government research institute, and ask before you plan around a place there.

Related unit: Techno Incubation Centre

The institute also runs a separate Techno Incubation Centre for tuber-crop value addition, with its own page. It trains farmers and entrepreneurs, offers incubation facilities to entrepreneurs making tuber-based products, and runs processing units for flour, snack foods and fried chips. Self-help groups can use its facility for a fee. The ABI page does not say its incubatees can use this unit, so we do not count its machinery as the ABI's facilities.

Location and contact

The institute's training calendar lists an Agri Business Incubation centre among the facilities on its campus. The institute is at Sreekariyam P.O., Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 695017. The ABI has no phone number or inbox of its own on the site. The page header shows the institute's switchboard and the Director's office inbox, and the contact page lists the telephone as (+91)(471) 2598551 to 2598554.