Agricultural Experts stress on deepening cooperation in agriculture sector for Food and Nutritional Security in the Region
The Chairman highlighted the UN Food System Summit 2021 and the transformations that are happening in the agriculture and food systems globally. He exhorted to enhance the engagement and deepen the cooperation in agriculture and allied sectors amongst the BIMSTEC Member States by encouraging the exchange of knowledge, germplasm, students, and experts. He also emphasized addressing biosafety and biosecurity concerns and promoting digital agriculture along with the trade of technologies for developing resilient agriculture, food systems, and value chains.
The BIMSTEC Member States appreciated the greater engagement of India offering six slots of scholarships each for Master and Ph.D. programs in agriculture and its other initiatives for capacity development and training including the development of seed sectors. The cooperation in the areas of high impact transboundary diseases of livestock and poultry; aquatic animal diseases and bio-security in aquaculture and digitalization to promote precision farming was also discussed in the meeting.
The BIMSTEC provides a unique link between South and South-East Asia with 5 countries - Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka from South Asia and two countries - Myanmar and Thailand from South-East Asia coming together on one platform for cooperation in 14 key economic and social sectors of the economy.
The BIMSTEC was founded in 1997 with an ambition to pursue mutual trade, connectivity, and cultural, technical, and economic development in the region. Initially, six sectors- trade, technology, energy, transport, tourism, and fisheries were included for sectoral cooperation which was later expanded to 14 areas of cooperation.
The 4th Summit of BIMSTEC Heads of States held on August 30-31, 2018 at Kathmandu emphasized deepening the cooperation in the agriculture sector to attain food and nutritional security, preserve and promote knowledge on traditional farming and reduce costs, enhance income and mitigate risks for farming communities. Likewise, the 1stmeeting of the agriculture Ministers of BIMSTEC held on July 12, 2019 in Myanmar also reiterated stronger agricultural cooperation among BIMSTEC countries. This has assumed even greater significance in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on the food system.
The Senior Officers of DARE and ICAR including Additional Secretary, DARE and Director, DARE; Deputy Director Generals and Assistant Director Generals of ICAR, Director, IARI, and representatives of Ministry of External Affairs joined the virtual meeting at Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi.


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