The CII National Council on Agriculture has taken up ‘Rejuvenating Indian Agriculture’ as its key priority agenda and with this objective the Council has actively engaged with the Government, both at the Central and State levels.
CII has always whole heartedly supported the initiatives towards the development of sectors that are crucial to the growth of the country and is also supporting this initiative of the Embassy of Netherlands where they are setting up Centers of excellence in various states of India, with an aim of doubling the food production in the country in next five years, said Mr Salil Singhal, Chairman, CII National Council of Agriculture & Chairman, PI Industries
It is imperative that any initiative taken in Agriculture sector helps us in increasing the farmers’ income which is crucial for increasing food production, said Mr Sanjeev Chopra, Joint Secretary & Mission Director, National Horticulture Mission & National Mission on Micro Irrigation, Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India. He further appreciated the setting of Centres of Excellence in several states of India under the Indo – Dutch collaboration and said that such COEs are a welcome step and it compels us to think big and scale certain milestones.
Mr Chopra, shared that an agreement between Indian & Dutch Government was signed for cooperation in the area of agriculture/food are defined. For this Centers of Excellence (CoE) are being established in some of the states in India, namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Punjab, West Bengal and Kerala for horticulture, dairy and meat processing. He also stressed that for the success of this initiative proper procedure is very important.
The Netherlands Ambassador HE Alphonsus Stoelinga, said that Dutch have always felt at home in India as Dutch traders have come to India four hundred years ago. Today we are here to create a new relationship in the agriculture sector by collaborating with India on the COEs that are big set up in the states of India.
Mr Jan Hak, Chairman, Netherlands Agro Food & Technology Center in his address mentioned that NAFTC is a public private partnership representing Dutch Agriculture, Food & Agro/Food Technology enterprises in selected countries and is the implementation body from the Dutch side. He also shared that NAFTC will be working with the respective states to make these CoEs approach sustainable.
Mr Arie Veldhuizen, Counselor for Agriculture, Nature & Food Quality, Embassy of the Netherlands stressed that these CoEs are important for achieving the goal of Doubling the food production in next five years and proper roadmap is being jointly prepared by Indian & Dutch Government for successful implementation & evaluation of the Centers of Excellence.
At Seminar on How to Double Food Production-In Five years– An Indo – Dutch Approach which was organized jointly by CII and The Netherlands Embassy, 23 May 2013.
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