India held bilateral meetings with the US, Brazil, Germany, UK, Japan, Spain, UAE on the sidelines of the G20 Agriculture Ministerial Meeting on September 12 and 13 in Cuiabá, Brazil.
Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Ram Nath Thakur led the Indian delegation along with Ambassador of India to Brazil Suresh Reddy and Joint Secretary Franklin L Khobung, Department of Agriculture & Farmers during the bilateral meetings.
“A bilateral meeting between Thakur and Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan Sakamoto was held on 12 September in Brazil,” the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ministry said on Sunday.
Both sides expressed their commitment to cooperate in mutually beneficial areas including such as use of technology, food processing, cold storage etc, sustainability and productivity of agriculture in India also through private investment.
Market access issues were discussed where Indian Minister Thakur asked to expedite the market access of Indian pomegranate and grapes in Japan while Japan Minister Sakamoto raised the market access of Japanese cedar.
A bilateral meeting between Thakur and Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil Carlos Fávaro was held on 13 September in Brazil. Favaro underscored learnings from the Indian Presidency and friendly relations between the two countries. Thakur congratulated the Brazilian Presidency on successful completion of AWG meetings.
During the meeting, both sides discussed issues related to cooperation in science and technology, cooperation in ethanol production and market access.
The two countries agreed to cooperate in science and technology and expressed the hope that the Memorandum of Understanding between ICAR India and EMBRAPA Brazil would be completed before the G20 leaders meeting in November.