In a statement delivered at the 7th Meeting of Ministers of Agriculture from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Member Nations in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, Tajik Minister of Agriculture Saadi Karimzoda stated on July 25 that the Organization member nations must be ready for every global food security challenges and respond appropriately to them, according to press center of the Ministry of Agriculture of Tajikistan.
“Today the government of Tajikistan implements tax policy in this direction. We have introduced a number of tax incentives for agricultural producers,” said Karimzoda. “ By this we strive to provide the domestic market with agricultural products and work to ensure that the value added chain is not interrupted.”
He also called on his counterparts from the SCO member nations to expand cooperation on the issues of addressing soil salinization and land desertification.
“The Tajik side is open to dialogue and cooperation in the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on any issue,” Karimzoda stated.
Tashkent hosted the seventh Meeting of the Ministers of Agriculture of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on July 25.
The meeting was attended by the Agriculture Ministers of India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, SCO Secretary General and FAO representatives.
At the meeting, the heads of delegations exchanged views on establishment of coordinated and effective cooperation between the SCO member states in agriculture and food security.
It was suggested at the meeting to adopt active measures for popularization and promotion of agriecological agriculture within the SCO area, launch projects to develop agrarian sector together with FAO.
Agroecology shares much in common with other approaches to sustainable farming. Agroecology is farming that centers on food production that makes the best use of nature’s goods and services while not damaging these resources. Farming thrives when it works with local ecosystems, for example, improving soil and plant quality through available biomass and biodiversity, rather than battling nature with chemical inputs. Agroecological farmers seeks to improve food yields for balanced nutrition, strengthen fair markets for their produce, enhance healthy ecosystems, and build on ancestral knowledge and customs
The SCO agriculture ministers found it necessary to adopt a comprehensive program for development of agritourism, to exchange experience in this sphere, to organize regular international festivals.
Agritourism is "a form of commercial enterprise that links agricultural production and/or processing with tourism in order to attract visitors onto a farm, ranch, or other agricultural business for the purposes of entertaining and/or educating the visitors and generating income for the farm, ranch, or business owner."
The draft concept of cooperation in smart agriculture and agrarian innovations was approved at the meeting.
Smart farming is a management concept focused on providing the agricultural industry with the infrastructure to leverage advanced technology – including big data, the cloud and the internet of things (IoT) – for tracking, monitoring, automating and analyzing operations.
