With the aim to bring African and Indian decision-makers, experts and business people together, the Africa-India Economic Mission will give participants access to India's leading institutes and foremost agricultural equipment, irrigation and crop corporations, providing a basis for potential business partnerships, with a focus on public-private sector corporation.
"South-South cooperation is going to play a key role in the development of agriculture and agribusiness in the coming days. There is a wealth of learning and exchange repository with India which can benefit Africa in a big way, especially when the Government of India has announced financial and technical support to African countries. Being a global agricultural research centre, I am glad that we have taken this step a year back to facilitate the knowledge sharing process in partnership with EMRC," said William D. Dar, director general of ICRISAT.
During the five-day mission, visits and technical meetings will take place at India's world renown agricultural research institutes, in addition to companies linked to equipment and machinery, water conservation and management, bio-fuels, seeds and fresh produce management.
India's agricultural landscape varies widely, just like Africa, although like Africa an important proportion is part of the semi-arid climate, which has highly variable and low rainfalls and low productivity soils which calls for watershed management and grain innovation. Covering 6.5 million square km of land in 55 countries, the semi-arid or dry land tropics has over 2 billion people, and 644 million of these are the poorest. A lot has yet to be achieved so that these regions and populations have enough food for themselves and are able to develop their land to achieve economic growth and move forward from subsistence to commercial farming.
ICRISAT is an international agricultural research-for-development institute on sorghum, pearl millet, chickpea, pigeon pea and groundnut - crops that support the livelihoods of the poor in the semi-arid tropics encompassing 48 countries. The institute has its headquarters in Patancheru, India, and two regional centres for Eastern and Southern Africa in Nairobi for West and Central Africa in Bamako, Mali.
"There is the know-how and there are the technologies out there to ensure real agricultural development. What is important is that people can access and exchange techniques and partner together. This will be the key for growth and will ensure that communities, countries and the African continent prosper sustainably," said Idit Miller, vice president of EMRC International.
