Agriculture and Agrarian Development
BRICS countries produce more than a third of the global agricultural output and have a significant role and responsibility in ensuring the sustainability of the agriculture and food sector, global food security and nutrition. By ways of deepening agricultural cooperation and promoting comprehensive development of rural areas, the member countries take actions for increased resilience of agriculture, rural areas and farmers.
Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi has always envisioned great scope of agricultural growth through collaborative efforts among BRICS countries. The first meeting of the BRICS Ministers of Agriculture and Agrarian Development was held in March 2010 in Russia, Moscow.
An Agricultural Expert Working Group (AEWG)) was advised to be set up in pursuance of the first BRICS Agricultural Ministers’ Meeting. The Action Plan (2012-16) drafted by AEWG, identified majorly the following operations:
- Creation of agricultural information base system of the BRICS countries(coordinated by China).
- Development of a general strategy for ensuring access to food for the most vulnerable population (coordinated by Brazil).
- Reduction of negative impact of climate change on food security and adaptation of agriculture to climatic changes (coordinated by South Africa).
- Enhanced agricultural technology cooperation and innovation (coordinated by India).
- Trade and investment promotion (coordinated by Russia).
The 10th meeting of the BRICS Ministers of Agriculture and Agrarian Development, held in September 2020, acknowledged the setting up of an virtual platform in 2016, BRICS Agriculture Research Platform (ARP) for promotion of research in agriculture and allied activities, information and technology- sharing, capacity-building and improvement in policies. The BRICS Agriculture Ministers at the 10th meeting called for collaborative efforts on:
- Development of Basic Agricultural Information Exchange System: Icreased use of digital solutions and comprehensive efforts over agricultural ICT (Information Communication Technologies) to enhance sharing of agricultural information and technology-transfer through the BRICS-ARP.
- Balanced improvement in agricultural production and food security at the global level, through South-South cooperation.
