IANS | 07 Sep, 2023
The ASEAN-India leaders on Thursday expressed their commitment
towards maintaining and supporting ASEAN as the epicentrum of global
growth and to increase concerted efforts between ASEAN and India in
sustaining supply in the food trade supply chain despite disruptions.
The
ASEAN leaders, aiming to strengthen food security and nutrition in
response to crises, decided to exchange information on national policy
frameworks particularly for rice and other priority crop commodities as
well as agricultural diversity to enhance food security and nutrition, a
joint statement said.
The joint statement was issued after the
ASEAN-India summit, which took place in Jakarta with Prime Minister
Narendra Modi attending it.
The grouping also acknowledged
nutritional richness, climate resilience, health benefits and ecological
sustainability of millets, considering that millets are good for the
consumer, cultivator and climate; and supported efforts to mainstream
the cultivation and harvesting of millets for ensuring global food
security, promoting biodiversity and transforming agri-food system.
It
also decided to support ASEAN-India preparedness for long-term
resilience and sustainability of agri-food system, including by
strengthening local and regional food value chains.
The leaders
also committed to encourage financing climate-friendly technologies, in
partnership with Multilateral Development Banks and development finance
institutions on ASEAN-India mutually agreed terms, and adopting a
climate-smart approach based on agricultural system models for
sustainable agricultural production.
It has also decided to
collaborate on rapid actions to strengthen food security and nutrition
in response to crises, including by ensuring unimpeded trade and flow of
foodstuffs and other essential agricultural inputs, including the
supply of fertilisers, pesticides, and their raw materials as well as
enhancing market connectivity and distribution networks for agriculture
and food products.
Most significantly, the grouping has also
decided to promote efforts for public food stockholding, wherever
relevant, for food security programmes and explore exports of food
grains from public stocks on a government-to-government basis for
humanitarian purposes in times of crises.