|
|
|
You can get e-magazine links on WhatsApp. Click here
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAO’s Graziano da Silva, Modi discuss efforts to promote food security
|
|
Friday, 12 September, 2014, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
|
|
Ashwani Maindola, New Delhi
|
|
fiogf49gjkf0d During his recent tour to India, José Graziano da Silva, director general, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), met prime minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. They agreed on how to strengthen efforts to promote India’s food security and sustainable agricultural development.
This was Modi’s first meeting with the FAO chief since the former took office as head of the country’s government.
In the course of the meeting, the prime minister expressed his concern about the impact international trade agreements could have on national efforts to fight hunger and defended the setting up of strategic food stocks.
Modi urged FAO to defend the concerns of the poor and farmers in developing countries. For his part, Graziano da Silva agreed that strategic stocks were important, and it was imperative for national governments to have the necessary tools to ensure that they are able to implement policies that contribute to eradicating hunger.
“Food security comes first,” said Graziano da Silva, adding that trade policies should be customised to guarantee it.
He reiterated that eradicating hunger was imperative and national governments must have the flexibility to put in place suitable mechanisms to achieve this.
He invited the Indian government to further discuss the issue at the third ministerial meeting on governance and international commodity markets, slated to take place in Rome on October 6, 2014.
School meals and family farming
Describing Graziano da Silva as always a friend of India, Modi said he was interested in knowing more about the Zero Hunger Programme Graziano da Silva led in Brazil, which inspired the Zero Hunger Challenge he launched.
The FAO chief explained how the Zero Hunger Programme helped millions of Brazilians overcome extreme poverty by promoting a comprehensive approach to food security, combining productive support to social protection.
In this context, Modi and Graziano da Silva discussed ways to link family farming production to school meal programmes by creating local food procurement programmes.
Graziano da Silva said that this experience was a success in Brazil and that, today, 30 per cent of the public food purchases for school meals are legally required to be made locally from family farmers.
“This ensures stable markets for farmers and at the same time ensures culturally-acceptable, nutritious and fresh meals for school-going children. Several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa were adopting similar approaches,” he added.
The importance of care-givers, especially women, in ensuring healthy nutrition of families was also discussed at the meeting.
Graziano da Silva said that supporting care-givers in this role was important and noted that, together with school feeding programmes, they could help improve nutritional awareness and food habits in the home.
He invited Modi to visit the FAO headquarters to contribute directly with his ideas to important global fora.
The FAO chief also invited the prime minister to send Dr Harsh Vardhan and Radha Mohan Singh, India’s health and family welfare and agriculture ministers respectively, to discuss these issues at the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), which would take place in Rome between November 19 and 21, 2014, and be co-convened by FAO and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Support to agriculture
Modi said, “India looks forward to FAO’s active participation in addressing the emerging challenges in Indian agriculture.”
Reducing food loss and wastage, and improving food storage were some of the specific areas in which the United Nations agency’s support was discussed.
Modi also expressed an interest in engaging young scientists, drawn from academic institutions in the BRICS countries (namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), on agriculture issues.
Graziano da Silva and the prime minister further discussed the potential for India’s expansion in aquaculture and other sectors.
He also had meetings with Singh; Ram Vilas Paswan (minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution), Prakash Javadekar (minister of state [independent charge], environment, forests and climate change), and Upendra Kushwaha (minister of state, rural development).
Agri projection - 4% growth
Singh apprised Graziano da Silva of the significant strides made by India in the agricultural and allied sectors during the last few years.
The minister said that India has not merely achieved self-sufficiency in food, but has also done extremely well in horticulture, dairying, milk production, fisheries, post-harvest management and development of cold chain infrastructure.
“Today, India produces over 260 million tonne (MT) of foodgrain, 269MT of agriculture produce and 132MT of milk,” he said.
Stating that agriculture was the mainstay of the country, Singh said that its share in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was 13.7 per cent, and it was a source of employment for 22 per cent of the total population.
The minister stated that a growth rate of four per cent has been envisaged for the agriculture sector, and investments in the agriculture and allied sector in 2012-13 have been of the order of Rs 181.81 billion.
Terming the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) an ambitious programme, Singh said that it would facilitate the holistic development of agriculture and allied sectors by incentivising the states to increase public investment; building robust infrastructure and creating assets to fill identified gaps.
He also described other important initiatives, which include the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) which seeks to address climate change adaptation technologies in the areas of resource conservation, water use efficiency enhancement, soil health management, integrated farming system and mainstreaming rain-fed technologies.
The minister mentioned the steps taken by the government to encourage mobilisation of farmers to form farmer producer organisations (FPO). He said that the government has launched equity grant credit guarantee fund scheme to facilitate these FPO to access equity grant to double member equity upto a maximum limit of Rs 10 lakh.
Graziano da Silva appreciated the vibrant cooperative movement being run in India. He expressed the hope that the technological initiatives taken by India in rice production and other crops would help in a big way other countries, including Brazil, Russia and South Africa, in overcoming the difficulties in this sector.
He also said that FAO would be proud to participate in India’s National Food Security Mission. He assured that challenges being faced by India in agriculture sector would be given due priority in the agenda of various committees of FAO.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|