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Tenth Agri Leadership Summit held to address food security challenges
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Friday, 15 September, 2017, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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Given the prominent role of agriculture to the Indian economy and the changing dynamics of global trade, the Indian Council of Food and Agriculture (ICFA) organised the Global Agriculture Leadership Summit 2017 - the 10th essay of the summit, whose objective was to address the challenges of food and nutritional security in the face of climate change.
The summit was an amalgamation of key stakeholders from the government, corporates, experts and farmers. M S Swaminathan; commerce minister Suresh Prabhu; minister of state of agriculture and farmers’ welfare Parshottam Rupala, Kenneth Quinn, president, World Food Prize Foundation, United States, and M J Khan, chairman, ICFA inaugurated the two-day summit.
Considering the importance and plethora of opportunities that agribusiness offers, not only for the industry but also for realising the prime minister’s dream of doubling farmers’ incomes, the theme of this summit was From Agriculture to Agri-business.
Prabhu underlined the paradox of production and prices, as increased production in the country results in lower prices to farmers. He felt that the major challenge was to ensure better returns to farmers and proposed developing agricultural parks in the country on the lines of established industry clusters.
Swaminathan, the father of Green Revolution in India, stressed on the role of youth to transform agriculture. He advised agriculture universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) to establish genetic gardens for biofortified crops.
Rupala revealed that a decline of nearly 10-15 per cent in the usage of fertilisers was reportedly observed after implementation of the Soil Health Card scheme in the country.
Quinn fondly recalled the impactful efforts spearheaded by doyens like Norman Borlaug, the later C Subramaniyam and Swaminathan against hunger and declared the Norman Borlaug Medallion for the government of India, in honour of Subramaniyam for his prominent leadership in paving the way for the Green Revolution in India.
The 10th Agriculture Year Book by Agriculture Today was launched during the function. It is an important vehicle of information dissemination for the agricultural community and the agri-business industry.
The summit concurrently had presentations of 10th Global Agriculture Leadership Awards for outstanding performance of individuals and organisations in the food and agricultural sector.
Manohar Lal Khattar, chief minister, Haryana, and K Chandrashekhar Rao, chief minister, Telangana, were presented with a Special Achievement Award and a Policy Leadership Award, respectively.
Other prominent awards were conferred upon Bahadur Ali, managing director, IB Group, for agribusiness leadership; Mahindra Agri Solutions for corporate leadership; Anil Mittal, chairman, KRBL, for trade leadership, and other laureates from food and agriculture sector in various categories.
The committee for Leadership Awards 2017 comprised 26 members of national eminence and was chaired by Swaminathan himself.
The summit deliberated upon the issues and agenda of farmers and devise strategy for doubling their incomes by 2022 as per the call given by the prime minister.
At the event, two Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with German Agribusiness Alliance and Iowa State University Seed Centre were signed with an objective to promote research, trade, technology and business cooperation in the food and agriculture sector by providing policy advocacy, promoting investments.
ICFA also launched the crop stewardship programme, GAP certification agency AGROCERT, the agriculture knowledge transformation platform, HR agency agripositions.com for agri professionals and the website of All India Farmers Alliance.
The valedictory function was presided over by Quinn, R B Singh, chancellor, Central Agricultural University, Members of Parliament Anand Bhaskar Rapolu, Anupam Hazra and Vincent Pala and Khan.
Rapolu, in his concluding remarks, mentioned that deliberations of this two-day summit would come up with a road map and action plan for the best ways and means to address various issues concerning the farm sector and the farmers and such recommendations would be of great help to the policy-makers and various implementing authorities engaged in catalysing transformational changes in the sector.
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