Experts from the US and India held a discussion on food sciences and agricultural education, in the city on Tuesday. The Indo-US dialogue was organised by the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University (BHU). A delegation of scientists from College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), Cornell University, USA, visited the Institute of Agriculture Sciences, BHU, for a possible collaboration under the USAID programme.
A university spokesperson said that the USAID programme is to be implemented by a consortium of universities, with the BHU and the Cornell University as leading players.
In this reference, several US universities have visited the BHU in the past. There is a possibility of launching this programme in February.
This initiative will give an impetus to the agricultural research, extension and teaching in the country.
Speaking on the occasion, Ronnie Coffman, a professor of plant breeding and director of international programmes, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, said he has visited many of the 140 rice research stations in India while working with the International Rice Research Institute, Philippines, and also worked with important institutes of Indian Council of Agriculture Research, New Delhi.
He said he is hopeful of a fruitful collaboration between the BHU and the Cornell University.
Max J Pfeffer, senior associate dean, CALS, said the Cornell University has already started a few programmes with some universities in India, especially dual degree programmes in the field of plant biotechnology and agri-business management.
Such programmes have helped several Indian students including some from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, fetch better jobs at international level, he said. "I am looking forward to having a similar collaboration with the BHU," he said.
He further stated that the BHU-Cornell partnership programme will include issues like food security, population increase and expected food supply, and agriculture in global environment.
In this reference, he said that the USAID programme will address the issues of global technological needs and environmental issues related to food production.
S S H Rizvi, a professor of food science, spoke about agriculture and food science in global prospective.
He said that though India has attained self sufficiency in food production, a large chunk of population still lives under the poverty line.
"The US processes its food up to 80% in response of only 2% to 3% in India," he said, adding this is one of the reasons of high percentage of food getting wasted in India.
He said that India has the potential to become a leading player in the food industry in the coming days.
Pilar Parra, a nutritionist and senior lecturer, CALS, Cornell University, spoke on the phenomenon of 'occurrence of obesity in middle income group due to poor management of nutrition'.
A K Shrivastav, director, National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, spoke about contribution of agriculture and allied sciences in economy of the country.
He was of opinion that during the green revolution, in addition to self sufficiency in foodgrain, other agriculture sciences like horticulture, vegetable, milk, meat, egg production had also progressed manifold.
Presiding over the programme, BHU vice-chancellor D P Singh said the partnership programme with the Cornell University would be useful for the BHU as well as the country.
The programme was coordinated by Alok Jha.
S R Singh, director, Institute of Agricultural Sciences; dean Kalyan Singh, Subedar Singh, and several others attended the programme.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.