V U A T

About VUAT

The Virtual University for Agricultural Trade (VUAT) is established by the Government of Kerala as a consortium of state and central agencies as per the recommendations of the Commission on WTO Concerns in Agriculture headed by Prof. M.S. Swaminathan.

Agriculture in Kerala, dominated by plantation crops, heavily depends on foreign trade and hence is highly influenced by WTO regimes.  To take advantage of the emerging dynamic market opportunities and to evolve appropriate strategies for minimization of the negative impacts of the trade regimes, the Commission recommended the establishment of a Virtual University on Trade in Agriculture as a consortium of groups having capability in agriculture, trade, information technology and related areas that will make available the right information to the right people at the right time and ultimately serve as an institution for furthering agrarian prosperity.
The VUAT was established under the dynamic leadership and guidance of the Hon'ble Minister for Agriculture & Coir, Government of Kerala, through a cabinet decision as per GO (MS) No. 37/04/AD dated 20-03-2004. 
The Kerala Agricultural University and the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management -  Kerala are the twin agencies vested with the implementation of this project with the active partnership of Commodity Boards and export promoting agencies.  The Department of Agriculture, Government of Kerala sponsors the project.

Objectives and mandate

• To enable farmers for achieving higher income and prosperity through productivity improvement, quality enhancement, value addition and farmer-friendly marketing of agricultural produce
• To enable building up a sustainable agricultural trade security system
• To generate database management systems on trade in agriculture
• To serve as a decision support system to the government, trade and farmers
• To offer short-term courses on specific aspects of trade and IPR in agriculture under the WTO regimes within the framework of a virtual college

Functions

• Awareness creation to all the stakeholders
• Creation of the specific knowledge on the provisions of WTO to different stakeholder groups
• Collection, documentation, analysis and interpretation of market and trade information
• Advisory and decision support to the Government
• Offering short training programmes on selected areas of interest to different groups of stakeholders
• Offering short-term courses on selected areas of WTO and trade related aspects

Consortium collaborators

• Export promotion agencies like APEDA, MPEDA, Cashew Export Promotion Council
• Commodity Boards
• Organizations of farmers / planters / exporters
• Export linked institutions like Cochin Port /Airport
• Quality control institutions like BIS, Directorate of Marketing and Inspection
• Departments of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, Dairy Development, Forestry and Science & Technology
• Export processing units
• Academic institutions like KAU, IIITM-K and ICAR institutions
• Ministry of Commerce, Govt. of India, Dept of Commercial Intelligence
• Departments of Economics and Statistics, Government of Kerala
• State Planning Board
• State Agricultural Prices Board
• IKM Kerala, IT Mission, Akshaya
• IT Departments of the GOK and GOI
• MSSRF, ISRO (MetSat)

The role of the consortium partners

• Data generation
• Database management
• Training programmes
• Short courses
• System management
• Co-ordination

Portal Based Services

• Kerala agricultural trade pattern in the world context
• Kerala Agricultural trade opportunities
• WTO and IPR in agriculture
• Agricultural trade information
• Export-import pattern in agriculture
• Market intelligence and market information
• Trade promotion and trade facilitation services
• Trade policy and trade regulation
• Impact of free trade agreements on Keralas’ agriculture
• Organic farming and trade
• Meteorological information system
• Input services
• Agricultural insurance services
• Government schemes and programs
• Agri-calendar
• Farm advisory services

Expected benefits

• Knowledge empowerment to the farming community in Kerala to enable improvements in cultivation practices to take advantage of the emerging dynamic market conditions
• Facilitating trade security to farming community
• Promotion of quality revolution among the stakeholders in agriculture
• Enabling traders and exporters to have better access to world market through market intelligence, thereby facilitating higher prices at the farmer level.
• Enabling the Government and the policy makers to provide appropriate policy support to the farming sector
• Assisting farmers to have better access to market and trade information
• Enabling the farmers to achieve sustainable increase in production, productivity and improvement in quality