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Prior to the G20 Summit in Seoul on November 11, Barack Obama completed a wide-ranging tour of Asia to redefine the U.S. strategic position with the region’s powers. The American President thus traveled to India for a four-day state visit between November 6 and 9, a visit dedicated to economic cooperation, particularly agricultural partnerships.
Hence, Barack Obama declared his hope to strengthen the agricultural partnership with India to launch a “doubly green revolution”, echoing the first green revolution implemented in the 1960’s to improve India’s agricultural yields and fight food insecurity. Back then, special emphasis was given to agricultural mechanization, High-yield grain production through input imports, and the improvement of irrigation systems. The United States had provided assistance to India to implement these policies through advanced cooperation.
Today, we are still speaking of technical cooperation, but the United States intends to pass on its know-how in the areas of weather forecasting and yield levels. Incidentally, India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh indicated that an agreement has already been signed between the two countries. In his address to the students of St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai, the American President said, “India can become a model for countries that are striving for food security.”
If we want to improve food security in developing countries, modernizing agricultural infrastructures is a necessary condition, but not the only one. We must not forget that without a stabilized global framework, such good intentions will remain unheeded. Only by initiating an effective regulation of agricultural markets––physical and futures markets––will we see the genuine effectiveness of such policies.
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