The focus will be on capacity building

 AgriNation News Network

New Delhi | 12 Jan 2018

India and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Friday agreed to work together in food, agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and forestry to achieve sustainable development goals and meet the UN Zero hunger challenge. Besides calling for managing food security and price volatility, they also agreed for implementing more capacity building programmes in 2018 for empowering women through cooperatives.

In a joint declaration, they also agreed to work together to alleviate the challenges of climate change, enhance livelihood opportunities through agro- forestry, exchange farm machineries and develop heterotic rice hybrids.

The meeting was co-chaired by Grisada Boonrach, Thailand’s Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives and Radha Mohan Singh, India’s Agri and Farmers’ Welfare Minister.

Taking note of the mid-term action plan for Agriculture and Forestry (2016–2020), they underscored the importance of addressing climate change as it adversely impacts food security. They urged for cooperation to promote enhanced resilience of natural systems and improve the adaptive capacities of people to cope with environmental hazards.

Further, in order to enhance opportunities for ASEAN-Indian farmers and fishers, the two ministers also asked for the implementation of the 3^rd exchange visit for farmers between ASEAN and India.

“This will help young and women farmers to learn and develop more efficient farming practices and management skills through information sharing”, they said.

The next, that is the 5^th ASEAN-India Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture and Forestry will be held in Brunei Darussalam in 2019.

Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Brunei are the members of ASEAN.