A high level German delegation led by Mr Peter Bleser, MdB, Parliament State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Germany visited the BISA Research Center at Ladhowal, Ludhiana (Punjab), India on February 12, 2015. It is the third consecutive year that BISA is hosting a high level German delegation. The other members of the delegation were:
Dr Martin Muller, Personal Assistant to the Parliament State Secretary, Mr Bleser
Mr Birgit Risch, Head of Division, Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture
Dr Helmut Tschiersky, President, Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety
Dr Benedikt Naarmann LL.M., Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture
Dr Thomas Wilde, Senior Consultant-AHA International, Andreas Hermes Akademie (AHA)
Dr Carsten Bernoth, Attorney at Law, Deputy Director, Association of the German Confectionary Industry
Mr Vera Fritsche, International Trade Fairs, Food Processing and Packaging Ministry
Dr Carl-Stephan Schafer, Secretary General, German Plant Breeders Association
Dr Andreas Hensel, President, Federal Institute for Risk Assessment
Ms Alina Gumpert, Director-Agribusiness, German Asia Pacific Business Association
Ms Ursula Holzhauser, Counsellor, Food and Agriculture, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany
The delegation, which spent over an hour at the farm, were shown the center’s research trials by Dr M L Jat, Dr Uttam Kumar, Mr Pankaj and other members of the BISA team including students. The members of the delegation were impressed with the trials on conservation agriculture and the technologies adopted for improving water and nutrient use efficiency. The Parliament State Secretary felt that the technologies observed on BISA farm could be gainfully adopted by the western world and BISA might invite students from Germany for training in some of them. The delegation suggested research initiatives on relay cropping, genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms in wheat, and farm machinery.
Discussions were held with Ms Alina Gumpert, Director-Agribusiness, German Asia Pacific Business Association about the possibility of considering BISA farm to demonstrate German technologies related to agronomic practices, farm machinery processing, etc.
BISA hopes that it is the beginning of a relationship with Germany for a long and fruitful association.