Dr. Dinesh, Chief Executive, National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) was invited as a Panelist to speak on the sub-theme of Role of Cooperatives in Ensuring Food and Nutrition Security in a three day event organized by 5th Global Economic Summit, 2015 organised by World Trade Centre in Mumbai last week.
The theme of the meet was “Enabling Food for All”. The objectives of the Summit was to provide and effective platform to deliberate on the issues of food and nutrition security and how the summit can be achieved through sustainable farming, food processing and distribution.
During the event more than 8 panel discussions were held in which more than 18 Indian Experts and 15 International Speakers including representatives from FAO and World Food Programme spoke. The event was partnered with FAO, IFAD, WFP and WFO, Ministers, Officials and Delegates from more than 30 Countries participated in the event/conferences/exhibitions and B2B Conference.
Dr Dinesh made presentation on the sub-theme focusing on various stages in the value-chain of food production by farmers and highlighted the immense role cooperatives have been playing in supporting farming community in India in achieving the objectives of food production.
It was of a particular importance to show-case the widest outreach of cooperatives in approximately 6.00 lakhs villages in India providing various inputs and other supports to the farmers. He also highlighted the areas requiring more investors in food production chain through strengthening the cooperatives to do their work more effectively and productively.
The focus of discussion included making PACS multi purpose organizations to serve the farmers from one window, empowering women farmers, attracting youth in agriculture sector through entrepreneurship, rain-fed agriculture, infrastructural facilities including linkages with markets and modifying APMCs etc. The session was attended by many stake-holders and experts from across 30 Countries including large number of farmers from Maharashtra.
The event was inaugurated by Minister for Industries, Govt. of Maharashtra, Shri Subhas Desai.
