India and the US would soon hold their first bilateral Agricultural Dialogue in New Delhi aimed at taking cooperation in the field to a new level, a top Obama administration official has said.
The dialogue will be a public-private initiative that will consider ways to promote development of rural India, that is largely dependent on farm related jobs, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake said.
"We hope to have the first US-India Agriculture Dialogue meeting within a few months in New Delhi to explore in detail how we can move these initiatives forward," Blake said in Chicago on Thursday.
"This will be a public-private initiative that can build on what our universities, companies, governments, and groups like the Chicago Council have been doing to promote rural development in India," he said in his speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
He said the two sides also expected the CEO Forum, convened in Washington on November 23 during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's State Visit to the US, to contribute to the efforts across-the-board.
"This Forum, which consists of 12 American CEOs and 12 Indians, has agreed to advise our governments how we can stimulate investment, spur job creation, and promote inclusive economic growth in both of our countries," Blake said.
Both Singh and President Barack Obama have acknowledged that the Indo-US relationship should have greater focus on working together to improve agriculture.
"We have a rich history of agricultural cooperation. Midwestern land grant colleges played a historic role in India's Green Revolution," Blake said.
Agriculture and allied activities contribute about 20 per cent to India's GDP, but alomost 50 per cent of the country's population lives on farm-related jobs, and Blake hoped cooperation would help in the development of rural India.
"We hope that those colleges will again play a critical role by partnering with Indian counterparts on research and training activities," Blake said.
He said American private sector is playing a significant and growing role in India's agricultural development and US's overall economic relationship with India.
Giving examples, he said, Minnesota-based Cargill has a 1200-person workforce to manage a wide range of operations in India, including in refined oils, grain, sugar, cotton.
He noted that Walmart, in partnership with Bharti, had opened its first wholesale market in Amritsar last May, and worked with more than 55 Indian small and medium enterprises to develop a wide range of products for its Indian clientele.
US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwahlia signed a wide- reaching MOU on Agricultural Cooperation and Food Security, laying groundwork for joint activities on crop forecasting, market information to farms, nutrition, science and research and encouraging greater private investment.
