Bridging the gap between agricultural research and farm-level adoption remains India's key challenge. Discuss with reference to the 'science-to-impact' approach and digital initiatives such as AgriStack.

The Green Revolution showed that farm research helps only when seeds, extension and policy move together. Partnerships with CIMMYT, IRRI and ICRISAT turned a food-deficit India into a food exporter [1]. Today, however, good laboratory science often stops short of the farmer. The ICAR–CGIAR Science and Partnership Week (New Delhi, April 2027) puts this "science-to-impact" gap at its centre [1][2].

Why the research–adoption gap persists

• Under-funding: research spending has stayed at about 0.3–0.4% of agricultural GDP since 2001, against about 1.8% in Brazil [3].
• Salary-heavy budgets: about 75% of DARE's allocation goes on salaries and pensions. Little is left for field trials and seed multiplication [4].
• Weak extension: the Dalwai Committee on Doubling Farmers' Income found too few staff, fragmented activities and poor targeting of farmers [5].
• Thin last mile: there is one Krishi Vigyan Kendra per rural district to test and demonstrate technologies on farmers' fields [6].

The 'science-to-impact' approach

• It shifts the focus from releasing new varieties to scaling up innovations that already reach some farmers [1].
• Its value-chain priorities include climate resilience, water, soil health, PPPs, startups, and the participation of youth and women [1].
• It treats farmers as co-participants and gives the media a role in communicating science [1].
• Proof it works: Indian groundnut germplasm shared through ICRISAT now underpins varieties grown in Malawi, Uganda, Mozambique and Zambia [1].

AgriStack: promise and limits

• The Digital Agriculture Mission (2024, Rs 2,817 crore) is building AgriStack: a Farmers' Registry, geo-referenced village maps and a Crop Sown Registry [7].
• Accurate farmer and crop data allow targeted advisories and scheme delivery. This directly addresses the "poor targeting" problem [5][7].
• India offers AgriStack to Global South partners as an area of collaboration [1].
• Limits: the registries are maintained by States, so data quality varies [7]. Digital messages also cannot replace hands-on field demonstration [6].

Way forward

• Raise research spending to the 1% of agricultural GDP that the Dalwai Committee recommended, and direct the increase to operations rather than salaries [3][4].
• Fill extension posts and link KVKs with AgriStack ("phygital" extension) [5][6].
• Use the 2027 event to secure multi-year research partnerships [1].

Closing the lab-to-land gap needs money, people and data working together. If India combines science-to-impact scaling with AgriStack-enabled KVKs, it can deliver a climate-smart second Green Revolution. That would advance SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.