Indian Cabinet okays India-Palestine MoU on agriculture cooperation

The Dollar Business Bureau

The Indian Cabinet has given its approval to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare and the Ministry of Agriculture in the State of Palestine on agriculture cooperation. This was signed in May 2017, when Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs had visited the country.

What could seem to be an innocuous agreement, one should also look at the extra efforts on the part of the Indian government to balance its ties with Israel, Palestine, Iran and the West Asian countries.

The MoU provides for cooperation in the fields of agricultural research; veterinary field including capacity enhancement of Palestinian Veterinary services and Animal Health; irrigation and climate change. It will also be extended to areas such as plant and soil nutrition; exchange of experiences in the field of sanitary and phytosanitary legislation and plant protection Animal husbandry, modern irrigation technology including exchange of experiences, and training and capacity building, etc. would also come in its purview. 

Under the MoU, an Agricultural Steering Committee will be constituted to determine the programs and action plans to achieve the objectives provided in the MoU It will also set the agenda for cooperation.

Trade between India and Palestine is channelized through Israel and data suggests that as of 2016 India-Palestine bilateral trade stands at around $30 million.