N Ravisankar Editor

Deepak Kumar, PhD, is presently working as the Executive Director of Nextnode Bioscience Pvt. Ltd. at Kadi, Gujarat, India. Before joining this organization, he served as Director (R&D) and Research Scientist in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Government of India’s approved lab for the private sector, for five years. He is the author or co-author of 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, three books, one patent, and 10 book chapters. For the past ten years, he has been involved in the quality production of biofertilizers and biopesticides. He has received numerous prestigious awards from various scientific and market research organizations, including Intellectual of the Year (2020) from Rifacimento International; Distinguished Industrial Microbiologist Award (2020) from the Microbiologists Society of India (MSI); India Leadership Awards (2019) in the Best Agribiotech Entrepreneur category from BlindwinkTM, Bangalore; Science Entrepreneur Award (2018) from Biologix Research and Innovation Centre (BRICPL, India); and Young Scientist Awards (2018, 2017) from the Society for Agriculture Innovation and Development (SAID), Ranchi (Jharkhand), and Doctor’s Agricultural and Horticultural Development Society, Lucknow, India, respectively. He also completed and guided six indigenous and externally funded (DSIR and DST) research projects. In addition, he is a technical consultant for more than a dozen companies for customized technical support.

N. Ravisankar, PhD, is a Principal Scientist (Agronomy: AICRP on ECF) at the ICAR–Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research, Modipuram, Meerut, India, since 2011. Having 20 years of research experience in the coastal and other regions, he is currently involved in coordination of integrated farming systems and organic farming activities at the national level as Programme Facilitator (Coordination Unit) and looking after the national level research work of the All India Network Programme on Organic Farming as National Principal Investigator. He has published 89 research papers in National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) rated journals (30 in > 6 NAAS rating), non-NAAS rated journals (5 papers), popular articles (35 papers), books (10), book chapters (50), technical bulletins (10), research folders (25), training manuals (13), video films (2) and TV/radio broadcast programs (50). Based on farmers’ participatory research, he has documented 81 geo-referenced farming systems success stories by involving 23 state agricultural universities. As a National Principal Investigator of the Network Project on Organic Farming (NPOF), he prepared a detailed package of practices for organic production of crops in cropping systems perspective for 79 cropping systems suitable for 14 states of India and published as Organic Farming: Crop Production Guide.

Anupama Panghal, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Food Business Management & Entrepreneurship Development, National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, Kundli, Sonipat, India. Prior to that, she worked for Thapar University, Patiala, India, and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India, New Delhi. She was also selected by the Government of India, under the Faculty Secondment Scheme of MHRD, as a visiting professor at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand, for the semester of January 2020. Her academic specialization is agriculture business management, and her current research interests are in the domains of agri-food supply chain management, technology inclusion in agri-food value chains, and agri-food entrepreneurship management. She has authored books and more than 20 research papers in reputed journals, which include Scopus and ABDC indexed ones. Also, she has contributed chapters in edited books. She has a deep interest in carrying out research and consultancy projects in the areas of the agri-food supply chain and agri-food entrepreneurship. Currently, she is working on one project funded by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) on "Development of a blockchain based traceability solution for agri-food supply chains" and another one on "Promotion of local food entrepreneurship and value chain development." She is also a master trainer for trainers under the PM Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises (PMFME) scheme of MoFPI for the domain of intellectual property rights (IPRs) for agri-food entrepreneurs. For her work in the past 15 years, she has traveled to Australia, Cambodia, Netherlands, Belgium, and Thailand.