Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday inaugurated a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for 'date palms' at Kukama, Kutch District, through a video link and interacted with the farmers. This is the 28th CoE set up by Israel to improve quality and cultivation of vegetables and fruits by using advance technologies.
Under the plans, planting material, root stocks and varieties of fruits and vegetables have been imported from Israel for crops like mango, citrus, date palm, pomegranate and vegetables. Sources in the Ministry of Agriculture said that technology has been provided by Israel for nursery management, protected cultivation, micro irrigation, fertigation, orchard management, canopy management and water treatment through various missions taken up by experts from Israel. A total 20 such centres has become operational across the country.
“As many as 250 field officers from different states have been trained by Israel Government as master trainers,” the sources said. The centre will work towards conversion of this raw stage to the ripe stage of the fruit and also for the cold storage of the harvest so that farmers can sell it at a later stage and earn handsome amount from the produce that has been harvested at the second stage of ripening.
As per plan, Israel will set up 33 CoEs across the country. In all, 15 States including Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, were picked for the centres of excellence. States can have more than one centre of excellence, building expertise in a particular fruit cultivation or in other fields such as beekeeping and floriculture.
The Indo-Israel Agriculture Project involves setting up of centres of excellence through which Israeli knowhow is being brought to local farmers through hands-on training and Israeli technology, thereby increasing productivity and crop diversity.