Delegates from 14 countries attend Agri Leadership Summit

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, March 26

Foreign delegates from nearly 14 countries deliberated on “Future areas of International Cooperation and Understanding in Agriculture Business, Agri-Industry and Food Processing” on the third and concluding day of the 3rd Agri Leadership Summit here on Monday.

Among those who attended the summit included Minister Economic from Nepal Krishna Hari Pushkar, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Mongolia Gonchig Ganbold, Agriculture Attache, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supplies Dalci de Jesus Banolin, Counsellor from Spain Dr Teresa Barras Benlloch and delegates from Zambia, New Zealand, Canada, Namibia, Germany, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Belgium, Ethiopia, Netherlands and Russia.

Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar and Principal Secretary (Agriculture) Dr Abhilaksh Likhi spoke on how the session could help the state and the delegates benefit from each other’s experiences and adopt new technologies to improve quality of food. Himachal Pradesh Governor Acharya Dev Vrat highlighter use of cow dung to increase agriculture production.

“Haryana has 90 lakh acres of agricultural land. The state supplies 14 crore quintals of food grains to other states after meeting its own requirements. We have to convert agriculture sector to agriculture service by use of improved technology. We need to work collectively on challenges like climate change, water scarcity and soil health. We have to work together to deliver good nutrient food to people,” said Dhankar.

Governor Acharya Dev Vrat spoke about zero budget farming on 200 acres of land to get better yield using indigenous cow dung, urine, water and milk.

Mandeep Singh Brar, Chief Administrator of the Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board, translated their speeches into English for the benefit of foreign delegates. Much to the surprise of participants, Mongolian Ambassador Gonchig Ganbold, also delivered his lecture in Hindi.

Inviting people to invest in Haryana, Principal Secretary (Industry) Sudhir Rajpal, said the Food Processing Policy focussed on processing fresh food.

“Haryana is providing 35 per cent subsidy on food processing units and the cap of subsidy has also be increased to Rs 3.5 crore from 2.5 crore,” he said.

Dr Likhi said that the session provided both Haryana as well as the foreign delegates an opportunity to know each others’ areas of strength in agriculture and share ideas.

Nepal Economic Minister Krishna Hari Pushkar told The Tribune Nepal had special relations with both Haryana and Punjab, since a lot of people from there came to these states and vice versa.

Mongolian Ambassador Gonchig Ganbold said his country was half of India in terms of territory, but has seven times lesser population than Haryana.

“There is a great deal of similarity between Mongolia and Haryana in terms of agriculture, though mining is another other big source of revenue,” he said.

Expressing satisfaction at the success of the Agri Leadership Summit, Dhankar said more than 1.60 lakh farmers had visited Rohtak in the past three days.