The Full Form of KVK is‍ Krishi Vigyan Kendras.

The Education Commission (1964-66) recommended that a vigorous effort be made to establish specialized institutions to provide vocational education in agriculture and allied fields at the pre and post matriculate levels to cater the training needs of a large number of boys and girls coming from rural areas. The Commission, further, suggested that such institutions be named as ‘Agricultural Polytechnics’. The recommendation of the Commission was thoroughly discussed: during 1966-72 by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Agriculture, Planning Commission, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and other allied institutions. Finally, the ICAR mooted the idea of establishing Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Agricultural Science Centres) as innovative institutions for imparting vocational training to the practicing farmers, school dropouts and field level extension functionaries.The ICAR Standing Committee on Agricultural Education, in its meeting held in August, 1973, observed that since the establishment of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) was of national importance which would help in accelerating the agricultural production as also in improving the socio-economic conditions of the farming community, the assistance of all related institutions should be taken in implementing this scheme. The ICAR, therefore, constituted a committee in 1973 headed by Dr. Mohan Singh Mehta of Seva Mandir, Udaipur (Rajasthan), for working out a detailed plan for implementing this scheme. The Committee submitted its report in 1974.

The first KVK, on a pilot basis, was established in 1974 at Puducherry (Pondicherry) under the administrative control of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. At present there are 721 KVKs, out of which 498 are under State Agricultural Universities (SAU) and Central Agricultural University (CAU), 66 under ICAR Institutes, 104 under NGOs, 38 under State Governments, and the remaining under other educational institutions.