The Tata is collaborating with Israeli companies also on nutrition security, use of water, crop enhancements, and food transportation. The Indo-Israeli investment company Agiletree focuses on innovative ideas in software , internet and web development . Israeli IDE Technologies is operating India’s largest seawater desalination plant and Focal Energy is bringing different types of renewable energy to India.
Israel’s contribution to promote India’s agriculture , water and medical technologies has been enormous. Israel recently invited a 10-member delegation of dairy farmers from Punjab to participate in a training program designed by the Center for International Agricultural Development Cooperation, Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. This delegation included veterinarians, researchers and staff from the Punjab Dairy Development Board. The delegation has returned home equipped with many modern dairy farming techniques.
Israel is to set up over 28 centers of excellence across the nation in the near future. Of them, three centers are to be set up to boost agriculture in Karnataka this year. The centers, proposed to be set up in Kolar, Bagalkot and Belgaum, will focus on cultivation of pomegranate, mango and vegetables. Israel already has established a center for excellence in agriculture in Haryana. It is currently involved in cleaning the Yamuna River.
In June 2012, a delegation of 16 high-ranking Indian officials from the water authorities of Rajasthan, Karnataka, Goa and Haryana visited Israel’s waste-water treatment plants to meet some of the leading environmentalists and agronomists there and learn the desert country’s newest green technologies. We will take advantage of what Jerusalem has to offer in the agricultural sector .
Significantly, this sector is crucial to the existence and happiness of the largest section of its population. India produces 220 million tons of food a year. India is the second largest producer of potatoes in the world after China. It produced 45 million metric tons of potato in 2012, approximately 12.2% of the total global potato production. Yet much of India’s vast growing population still remains undernourished. Farmers have to sell their goods at very economical rates during the harvest seasons because they lack appropriate technologies to preserve them. Also, they cannot make profits to invest in advanced technologies. They’re stuck with grade B seeds. They have no greenhouses and are completely dependent on the weather. India could tap the opportunities available in Israel to take care of this predicament.
The innovative Israeli agritech industry includes advanced precision farming techniques, drip irrigation, next-generation robotic milking systems , desalination plants , environment-friendly agrochemicals (for crop protection) and agribiotechnology. Israel rears cows producing the highest volume of milk per animal in the world. Indian investors and agri-tech professionals could use these technologies. Their uses can dramatically increase India’s food yields in a sustainable, cost effective way.
Israeli company Netafirm has increased India’s cotton crop –vital to its textile industry– by 85 per cent and that with 40 per cent less water. India could repeat this experience in the production of other goods as well. There are 776 family-owned farms and 163 cooperative-based farms in Israel. MASHAV (Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation) introduces Israel’s expertise in economic, social and environmental sustainable development to developing countries. Mashav has trained 270,000 participants from 132 countries in various agricultural programs in Israel and abroad. All forward-looking nations are making use of such opportunities in Israel. India must not lag behind.
The sources say that in addition to the political consensus on the above areas, the Prime Minister-designate would have an additional reason to boost ties with Jewish state. Unlike the BJP-led government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Modi-led one this time around would have little pressure of the coalition politics to dilute the party ideology.
