TEST SERIES 
Date : 19 Jan 2022
India-UK meet on “Sustaining Food Production under Environmental Stress”
Tags :Why in News?
- Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh addressed the India-UK meet on “Sustaining Food Production under Environmental Stress” through virtual mode.
- Dr Jitendra Singh called for collaboration between the two nations on issues of mutual concern like achieving the goals of food security and zero hunger.
- The Workshop is being organized jointly by National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI), Mohali, an institute under Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and University of Birmingham, UK and supported by Newton Bhabha Fund and British Council.
- Dr Jitendra Singh said, India-UK joint collaboration may include programmes like students exchange, basic research, technology development, product development as well as product/process demonstration and their implementation in joint collaboration.
- Dwelling on the issue of Sustainable Food Production, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the South Asian region is facing the shrinking arable land, besides the problem of global climate change that needs to be addressed. Quoting World Bank data, the Minister pointed out that the Arable land in South Asia was reported at 43.18 % in 2018 which has been stagnant since the early 1970s and recently declining.
- Dr Jitendra Singh called for joint funding to develop a coherent and stakeholder-relevant R&D program that will address this challenge.
- NABI was established a decade back with the primary focus of improving nutritional quality of foods that reaches to our people across the country.
- NABI is a premier institute that works at the interface of Agri-Food and Nutrition Biotechnology.
- The institute could provide an impetus to the nations need for addressing nutritional security even under the climatic changes happening around the world.
