Israel has helped set up 29 centres of excellence across the country as part of its bilateral cooperation with India in agriculture, and the country’s Ambassador to India Daniel Carmon hopes to see these centres emerge into self-sustaining farms that would help transfer produce from the farm to the market.
“We have seen close to 10,000 farmers benefit from other centres,” Mr. Carmon said here on Tuesday. He was here to visit the Centre for Cut Flowers, an institution coming up as part of Indo-Israeli bilateral cooperation. It is slated to be the first such centre for cut flowers in the country. The centre at Thally is slated to function as a centre for demonstration, training, technology transfer and expertise to the farmers of the region. “I’ll be leaving this place reinforced that in a few months time, I’ll be coming back to inaugurate the centre that will be running, producing, and training. Idea of cooperation is not necessarily with governments but with the people,” Mr. Carmon said.
He termed the Indo-Israeli cooperation as a process that is sustained through mutual sharing of experiences and know-how. With Phase II of Agriculture Cooperation coming to an end, Mr. Carmon said the future of the cooperation would involve identifying new States, setting up of more centres in existing States, identifying future technologies, and conceiving a plan of action.
“Israel is also set to organise an agricultural commercial expo, Agri-Tech, from April 28 to 30. India has the largest delegation, with many Chief Ministers attending the Agri-Tech.”
Asked whether it was possible to rank the areas of bilateral cooperation between India and Israel in terms of importance, Mr. Carmon said it was a complete package of various ingredients. “The magnitude and configuration of each one is different and equally important. Agriculture, water and food security is as important as homeland security. On the other side, without the infrastructure to be safe and secure, other areas would not be possible as India is as aware as Israel of problems of security and terrorism,” Mr. Carmon told The Hindu .
