The meeting of SAARC Agriculture Ministers, called on the directive of the 15th SAARC Summit and the Colombo statement on Food Security, concluded in New Delhi with a consensus to enhance cooperation in a wide range of areas.

The extraordinary meeting, chaired by Minister of Agriculture, Shri Sharad Pawar, underlined the tremendous goodwill existing between SAARC member states in using the multilateral dialogue process to realize the South Asian people desire for economic development and food security.

At the meeting, the participating ministers shared their views on a number of issues like - increase in food production, investment in agriculture and agro-based industries, agriculture research and prevention of soil health degradation, development and sharing of agricultural technologies, sharing of best practices in procurement and distribution, and management of climatic and disease-related risks in agriculture.

Giving due consideration to the 'Imagine a New South Asia' (INSA) observation that close to 88 million people in South Asia are staring at a food crisis, the ministers noted that intra-regional cooperation among the SAARC member states was critical to address the current challenges in food shortage affecting the world.

The Ministers urged early implementation of the following regional and sub-regional projects:

• Making the Food Bank operational
• Cooperation in trans-boundary animal diseases, especially avian flu
• Network on harmonization of quarantine and capacity building
• SAARC Agricultural Vision 2020 and its roadmap

Furthermore, the SAARC Agriculture Ministers reiterated the importance of tapping local talent and resources to achieve the objectives set.