Karnal, March 20 Israel’s agency for international development cooperation Mashav said on Friday that it has successfully conducted a five-day workshop on irrigation and fertigation at Karnal.
“Four years ago, when we were at the initial planning stages of the second phase of the Indo-Israel Agricultural Cooperation, we could not have imagined how well it would develop and the immense impact it would have on the Indian farmers,” said Yahel Vilan, Israel’s deputy ambassador to India at the closing ceremony of the workshop.
According to Mashav, the five-day workshop which concluded Thursday was conducted as part of the Indo-Israel Agricultural Cooperation.
“More than 40 project officers, heads of state horticulture departments, centre of excellence directors and irrigation specialists from the 29 Indo-Israel Centre’s of Excellence attended this workshop,” Mashav said in a statement.
Mashav further said that two irrigation experts from Israel, Moshe Broner and Yoram Eisenstadt led the workshop.
Soil water plant climate relationship, applied hydraulics, micro irrigation, water quality principles, filter types and plant nutrition principles were some of the topics that were covered in the workshop.
Under the current framework of Indo-Israel Agriculture Cooperation Project, Israel has been contributing its best practices and knowledge, and providing capacity building through such professional training programs being conducted both in Israel and in India.
“To achieve this goal of the cooperation agreement, it was decided to establish ‘agricultural centres of excellence’ funded by both the federal government and by individual state governments,” the statement said
“So far, 29 Centres of Excellence in 10 states across India are in various stages of development.”
India and Israel have signed a joint declaration “Indo-Israel Agricultural Cooperation Project entering its third phase” during Vibrant Gujarat 2015 in order to extend the existing cooperation.
According to this agreement, both countries will establish a ‘joint team’ to finalise the ‘third phase’ of the three years action plan (2015-2018) for further strengthening and widening the scope of bilateral agricultural development cooperation.