India, key nations to cooperate in mutually beneficial areas in agriculture

New Delhi: India held bilateral meetings with several nations on the sidelines of the G20 Agriculture Ministerial Meeting in Brazil, expressing the commitment to cooperate in mutually beneficial areas, it was announced on Sunday.

Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Ram Nath Thakur, led the Indian delegation along with Ambassador of India to Brazil, Suresh Reddy, and other senior government officials.

India held bilateral meetings with the US, Brazil, Germany, the UK, Japan, Spain and the UAE.

In the meeting with Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan, Sakamoto, Thakur asked to expedite the market access of Indian pomegranate and grapes in Japan.

In the bilateral meeting with Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil, Carlos Favaro, both sides discussed issues related to cooperation in science and technology, cooperation in ethanol production and market access.

They also expressed the hope that the memorandum of understanding between ICAR India and EMBRAPA Brazil would be completed before G20 leaders meeting in November.

The Brazil side showed commitment to cooperate in ethanol production technology which will help the climate change action, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

The US and India agreed to take forward the cooperation in areas of climate-smart agriculture, agricultural productivity growth, agricultural innovation, forecasting and production reporting and agriculture and crop risk protection and agricultural credit.

In the meeting with Germany, Minister Thakur expressed the happiness on ongoing regular engagements of Indo-German Joint Working Group (JWG) and expressed the hope that the next upcoming meeting of JWG will be fruitful.

Both sides agreed to collaborate in the sectors such as application of artificial intelligence in farming and support to small farmers, agro-ecology and organic farming.

In the bilateral meeting with the UK, the both sides expressed their interest to cooperate in transformation of agriculture food system into sustainable agriculture, research and science- precision breeding, gene editing, and extension services.

The UAE showed interest to collaboration in research and technology, share experience on vertical farming and high yield technologies.