US, India to help improve African agriculture

Programme result of global strategic partnership announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama in 2010

The United States and India today launched the second India-US-Africa triangular agricultural training programme supported by the US Government’s global hunger and food security initiative -- Feed the Future. This partnership aims to improve agricultural productivity and support market institutions in Kenya, Liberia, and Malawi.

“As part of the broader US-India global partnership, the triangular engagement will share proven innovations from India’s private and public sector to address food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty in the target African countries,” United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Food Security Office Director Bahiru Duguma said in a statement.

Duguma kicked off the initiative today. The initiative, led by USAID and National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM), is part of a three-year training programme and one of several activities resulting from the global strategic partnership announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama in 2010.

Under the programme, 180 agricultural professionals from these three African countries will be trained. They will be provided marketing and extension management training at the Chaudhury Charan Singh National Institute of Agricultural Marketing in Jaipur and at the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management in Hyderabad.