Gujarat government is reportedly mulling an alliance with Saskatchewan province, known as an agriculture hub of Canada, in order to increase agriculture yields in the state. The province is recognised as one of the world's leading biotech research centres for agriculture and has developed a wide range of productive seeds.

According to sources, a delegation from Gujarat is likely to visit the province to explore various opportunities for tie ups in the agriculture sector. Within Canada, Saskatchewan is the largest of exporter of pulses, chickpeas (chana) and major exporter of wheat and mustard. Its contribution in world's total dry pea exports is 38% and in case of Canada's total chickpea exports, the figure is 80%.

"India is importer of pulses and the province has enough quantity to export. So a bilateral agreement for trade of agricultural commodities can work in the interests of both the regions," says RC Maheshwari, vice chancellor of SD Agriculture University, who attended the meeting between delegation from Saskatchewan and chief minister Narendra Modi.

Exchange of technology and knowledge in agriculture is more beneficial. "The province has developed productive varieties of durum wheat having high protein content. Trying them in Gujarat will lead to higher output. Moreover, farmers in Saskatchewan use tissue culture technology for the crop of banana, papaya and sugarcane, while in Gujarat, we use it for banana only. This can be extended to papaya and sugarcane," says SR Chowdhary, director of agriculture, Gujarat government.

Sachin Kumar/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication