Netherlands to set up 10 centres of excellence in India

[Srinivas_K]

Netherlands to set up 10 centres of excellence in India
VADODARA: The Dutch government is jointly working with its counterpart in India to set up ten centres of excellence (CoEs) across the country to help raise agriculture outputs.

Of these 10 CoEs, Gujarat may house a CoE on potato or horticulture. Ambassador of the Kingdom of Netherlands to India Alphonsus Stoelinga, who was on a one-day visit to the city, said this on Wednesday while interacting with media persons here.

"In India, we are setting up agriculture CoEs through public private partnership. In Gujarat, we are exploring a CoE for potatoes or horticulture while in Kerala it will be set up for horticulture. Similarly, in North-East we are exploring a centre for cattle, pork while in other states it will be set up for banana ripening, dairy and piggery," said Stoelinga.

"As India is looking to double its food production, it has to intensify its agriculture to enhance output but at the same time prevent losses in the food supply chain," he said, adding that the Indo-Dutch joint initiative is about Indian and Dutch authorities along with the private sector sharing technology know-how and developing skills to double food output.

During his visit, Stoelinga inaugurated a plant of Royal DSM, a Dutch multinational company active in health, nutrition and materials, at Savli.

Later, he also visited M S University (MSU) campus where he interacted with deans, principals, directors of cells and nodal officers of the Office of International Affairs in which he discussed future prospects of academic collaboration between MSU and universities and institutes of Netherlands.

"India and the Netherlands are very important economic partners for each other. India is the fifth largest source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the Netherlands and the same is the case of Netherlands which is also the fifth large source of FDI in India," said Stoelinga.

Speaking on the bilateral trade, he said India's exports to the Netherlands are around 10 billion Euros a year while its imports from the Netherlands are nearly 3.5 billion Euros a year.

"India has an advantage of 6.5 billion Euros but we are also looking at reducing this gap," he said, adding that Indo-Dutch relations are over 400 years old.

"Netherlands identifies India as an important economic partner and we believe that India will be the biggest talent pool in the world," he said, adding that most Dutch companies have their R&D centres located at Bangalore because of availability of good engineers.

Stoelinga also offered help to Indian government and business sectors in the areas of reclamation of ocean land, erection of cold storages and supply chain management of agricultural products.

"We have explored collaboration in the fields of performing art, life sciences and nutrition. Also, our faculties have proposed to establish faculty and student exchange programmes along with joint research activities with universities of Netherlands," MSU's officer on special duty (registrar) Amit Dholakia said.
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Netherlands to set up 10 centres of excellence in India - The Times of India

 

[shankyz]

Israel have collaborated with India on agricultural best practices , good to see Netherlands joining in with their CoEs as well...

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[nirranj]

Utter failure on our part... We dont need foreigners to lecture us on the best practices... We are doing agriculture for milleniums... We should try and find out our own solutions... that alone will make India as a center of excellence in agriculture...

 

[Blackwater]

Utter failure on our part... We dont need foreigners to lecture us on the best practices... We are doing agriculture for milleniums... We should try and find out our own solutions... that alone will make India as a center of excellence in agriculture...

No I don't agree. There is no harm in learning and adopting new tech

 

[nirranj]

No I don't agree. There is no harm in learning and adopting new tech

Very Harmful... the Green Revolution dumped all the wastes in the name of fertilizers in our farms and added the adding of chemicals as a routine in the farms... From the beginning of the green revolution till now the average addition of chemicals per acre per year has increased tremendously, that means capital cost has increased.. but the avg yield has not increased much resulting in heavy loses, coupled with defaults on loans... This is one of the major reasons foor farmer suisides and conversion of agriculture lands into real estates...

Also the introduction of cash crops by the british during coonial age is one of the main reasons for all those famines during the colonial age and the prevailing high rates of malnutrition now...

No to foreigners lessons in agriculture... We have our own best practices that has evolved in our own way of farming... We can use them.... I have personally seen how organic farming has transformed lives of many farmers in my locality... They used the traditional knowledge and learnt the best practices from their counterparts across the nation... The avg yield in the organic farms is significantly high too... The produces from those farms have less toxic content in them...

 

[Blackwater]

Very Harmful... the Green Revolution dumped all the wastes in the name of fertilizers in our farms and added the adding of chemicals as a routine in the farms... From the beginning of the green revolution till now the average addition of chemicals per acre per year has increased tremendously, that means capital cost has increased.. but the avg yield has not increased much resulting in heavy loses, coupled with defaults on loans... This is one of the major reasons foor farmer suisides and conversion of agriculture lands into real estates...

Also the introduction of cash crops by the british during coonial age is one of the main reasons for all those famines during the colonial age and the prevailing high rates of malnutrition now...

No to foreigners lessons in agriculture... We have our own best practices that has evolved in our own way of farming... We can use them.... I have personally seen how organic farming has transformed lives of many farmers in my locality... They used the traditional knowledge and learnt the best practices from their counterparts across the nation... The avg yield in the organic farms is significantly high too... The produces from those farms have less toxic content in them...

indian farmers are khote and uneducated. if west gives them tips on less water irrigation, hybrid seeds and organic farming where no use of fertilizer wats the harm.

ur agriculture university has failed to help and educate Indian farmers.

dutch farming is the most advanced and organic.

 

[Srinivas_K]

We have to be selective in adopting the new technologies from the West !!!

Very Harmful... the Green Revolution dumped all the wastes in the name of fertilizers in our farms and added the adding of chemicals as a routine in the farms... From the beginning of the green revolution till now the average addition of chemicals per acre per year has increased tremendously, that means capital cost has increased.. but the avg yield has not increased much resulting in heavy loses, coupled with defaults on loans... This is one of the major reasons foor farmer suisides and conversion of agriculture lands into real estates...

Also the introduction of cash crops by the british during coonial age is one of the main reasons for all those famines during the colonial age and the prevailing high rates of malnutrition now...

No to foreigners lessons in agriculture... We have our own best practices that has evolved in our own way of farming... We can use them.... I have personally seen how organic farming has transformed lives of many farmers in my locality... They used the traditional knowledge and learnt the best practices from their counterparts across the nation... The avg yield in the organic farms is significantly high too... The produces from those farms have less toxic content in them...

 

[nirranj]

indian farmers are khote and uneducated.

I think In your POV not knowing english or some western language means uneducated.

if west gives them tips on less water irrigation, hybrid seeds and organic farming where no use of fertilizer wats the harm.

We have lots of dry agriculture practices that were never studied.

ur agriculture university has failed to help and educate Indian farmers.

That doesn't means we should not reform our universities and just copy from the west. this is similar to arms imports. We will be screwed.

dutch farming is the most advanced and organic.

There is no most advanced... Three young boys in TN invented a organic insecticide that used plant materials and some dead worms last year. Except for one agri magazine in TN no other media gave coverage to this. We need to harness our own knowledge and we should not just go into the import is the best solution mode... Importing machines is different from importing farming ideas and seeds. Even the TN agri university has come up with a lot of farm equipments which are widely used by the farmers here... also the ICAR is doing a lot of good stuff. the need here is more govt funding for research and development in agriculture. That will solve the problem.. Not some fancy COE's from a foreign nation.

If You feel the dutch has the advanced organic farming practices it is better to know what they are doing. But we should stop there andd should not just blindly implement their ways... Just for example, the Eucaulyptus and pine that was planted extensively in Nilgiris with some foreign advice brought down the avg rainfall over the years and made many perennial rivers into seasonal rivers.

 

[Blackwater]

I think In your POV not knowing english or some western language means uneducated.



We have lots of dry agriculture practices that were never studied.



That doesn't means we should not reform our universities and just copy from the west. this is similar to arms imports. We will be screwed.



There is no most advanced... Three young boys in TN invented a organic insecticide that used plant materials and some dead worms last year. Except for one agri magazine in TN no other media gave coverage to this. We need to harness our own knowledge and we should not just go into the import is the best solution mode... Importing machines is different from importing farming ideas and seeds. Even the TN agri university has come up with a lot of farm equipments which are widely used by the farmers here... also the ICAR is doing a lot of good stuff. the need here is more govt funding for research and development in agriculture. That will solve the problem.. Not some fancy COE's from a foreign nation.

If You feel the dutch has the advanced organic farming practices it is better to know what they are doing. But we should stop there andd should not just blindly implement their ways... Just for example, the Eucaulyptus and pine that was planted extensively in Nilgiris with some foreign advice brought down the avg rainfall over the years and made many perennial rivers into seasonal rivers.

partly agree with u but not fully.