India-Africa Summit on Food Security on Nov 10

New Delhi, Nov 6 (UNI) The three-day international conference on ''India-Africa Cooperation for Sustainable Food Security'' will be held here from November 10 to take forward the declarations adopted on food security at June's Rome and earlier India-Africa April summits in the wake of emerging threats to food sovereignty of nations adding to the number of hungry people world-over.

Apart from some heads of states and agrciultural ministers from around 28 African countries, a sizeable number farmers and private sector representatives are likely to take part in the conference, according to former Union Minister and MP Suresh Prabhu.

Giving details about the conference here today, Mr Prabhu, who is also Chairman of the Steering Committee for the event, said it would provide a forum for dialogue between Indian and African leaders, development partners, farmers and private sector to prepare an Action Plan and a roadmap for its implementation while addressing food insecurity and poverty reduction issues.

It is an endeavour at emphasising agriculture's role for deployment towards attaining enhanced , sustained and inclusive growth and food security, he added.

The Conference which follows the earlier such interaction-India-SAARC meet-in last March, is being jointly organised by the Indian government, IFFCO, ICAR and IFFCO Foundation.

It will be followed next year by such conference between India and Latin American countries in New Delhi.

More than 100 experts on food and agriculture will be participating in the six technical sessions on alleviation of hunger, Inputs Management, R and D, Agrocforestry, genomics for livelihood security and management for natural resources and climate change.

Prof R B Singh, member secretary for the Conference' committee the policy makers and ministers attending the meet are likley to identify specific activities for cooperation in the area such as soil testing, soil health, watershed management, water conservation and post-harvest handling.

A Mozambique diplomat in India who is agriculrural dean of African countries was also present at the occasion.

There are about 950 million hungry people in the world and half of them reside in India and African countries put together.

Agriculture employs 50 to 70 per cent of the workforce in Africa and India which houses 2 billion, one-third of the world population.

Contribution of agriculrural GDP has dropped to 13 per cent in China, 16 per cent in India and still high, around 30 per cent in Africa. Percentage of hungry people in India is 21 per cent while this figure is higher in African countries.

But, the rising food prices, diverting of cultivable land to commercial and biofuel crops have threatened the food security world over pushing poor and vulnerable people towards hunger and malnutrition.

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