Shakti Sharan Singh

Ahmedabad | 31 May 2017

Last week, thirteen African countries signed partnership agreements with India to enhance the supply of agricultural machinery, credit advancement to farmers and scientific cooperation.

It was announced after a meeting of African Ministers of Agriculture, private sector associations and industry representatives from India and Africa at the 52nd session of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Annual Meeting in India on 24^th May 2017.

On the occasion, Gujarat’s Minister of Agriculture Chimanbhai Dharamshibai Shaparia said, “We feel the areas identified for cooperation could raise agricultural productivity in Africa because these include our support to the Pan African University Institute of Life and Earth Sciences in Ibadan, Nigeria. We want to ensure that capacity building is given full priority”.

He also informed, “India has made a proposal to provide vaccines to enable West African countries to deal with foot and mouth disease – an illness that affects livestock production”.

Agreements were signed between the farm machinery suppliers from Gujarat and their counterparts from Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique and Togo for the supply of farm machinery, training on the use of the machinery in mechanized agriculture.

India will import key cereals, grains and pulses like pigeon peas from African producers. Last year, PM Modi had signed MoU with Mozambique on the production and import of tur daal (Pigeon Peas).

Considering huge potential of doing business with African countries, Indian officials said, “Both India and African countries could benefit from trading in key commodities like in millet produced from Africa while India can explore opportunities to sell wheat to African countries”.

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