India, Africa to cooperate for increasing agricultural output

25 May 2011. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Africa and India laid the foundations for a stronger partnership with the adoption, by proclamation, of two key documents i.e. the Addis Ababa Declaration and the Africa- India Framework for Enhanced Cooperation. It sets out specific agreements to cooperate in the following areas: economic; political; science, technology, research and development; social development and capacity building; health, culture and sport; tourism; infrastructure, energy and environment and media and communications.

India has decided to send teams of farm experts to African countries to explore ways of helping the Africa to improve its agricultural practices. The Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) teams would visit Ethiopia, South Africa, Zambia and other countries of the African continent in June. The Indian teams would make trips to agricultural fields in these countries and interact with the farm scientists to get a first-hand knowledge of the cultivation processes there.A report would be submitted to the government after the trip to chalk out how best India could help African nations improve their agriculture, the ICAR official said.

"This is to study agriculture there and explore role for India to help train manpower in the farm sector there', Deputy Director General (DDG), Education, ICAR, Arvind Kumar

75 students from African countries would be enrolled every year from now onwards in varied agri universities to learn about latest know hows in the sector. As part of the past Indo-African programme, 49 students of African origin are studying presently in different agriculture universities in India.