Plans are underway for the forging of relations between the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute and the Indian Council on Agricultural Research (ICAR).
Indian High Commissioner to the Caribbean, His Excellency Malay Mishra told a news conference last week that there could be the signing of a memorandum of understanding very soon between the two research agencies and explains why this would benefit the Caribbean.
“The key priority is research because as you know, CARDI is basically focussing on research and development of agriculture in the Caribbean region. The same goes to ICAR. ICAR is Indian Council of Agricultural Research. That is the fixed body for our research. In the beginning I mentioned about green evolution. Green evolution came about because of research. We use hybrid variety seed in wheat, rice and cereals and that is how our productivity is now five times more.
“That is why we call it the green evolution and we are now going to the second part of green evolution. This is so because our population has been growing. We have a 1.2 billion plus population today. We feed the population and export the surplus because today, food security is of utmost concern to the world. ICAR stands at the forefront of agricultural research so I think if ICAR and CARDI come in, they will do a lot to improving the quality and standards of agriculture development for the entire Caribbean region.”
The Indian High Commissioner explained that the Indian Government is seeking to explore other areas of cooperation with Dominica in the field of agriculture.
“We feel that there is tremendous potential in the horticulture field where you have so much abundance of fruits, not only bananas, but coconuts, mangoes, limes, citrus fruits. You have a whole range of fruits which perhaps could be better utilised and we can move down the value chain in not only using these fruits properly, but in harvesting them, in growing them, in bringing out various by-products of the fruits for commercial production and using them to manufacture. At the same time, we are looking at small industries also.”
Meantime Acting Director of Agriculture Ricky Brumant is looking forward to the deepening of relations with the Indian Government in the field of agriculture.
“As you know, the Division of Agriculture basically is the implementer of Government policies where agriculture is concerned. We are looking forward to working with the Indian technicians and the Indian Government in areas of cooperation that will progress our agriculture towards economic growth and development in areas hopefully, like capacity building. We are looking forward to increasing our production and productivity in bananas and other horticulture crops, areas of food safety, plant health and quarantine. These are areas that are of importance to us especially and we are looking forward to that.”
Someone told me that CARDI fell apart awhile ago. It would be nice if it came back into being.