Nepali delegation visits Indo-Israeli Centres of Excellence in India

March 31, Kathmandu: A Nepali delegation of six senior officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development on Tuesday and Wednesday visited the Indo-Israel Centers of Excellence (CoE) for vegetables and citrus in the Punjab state and for beekeeping in the Haryana state of India.

The delegation was led by the Director-General at the Department of Agriculture, Dr Rewati Raman Poudel.

According to the Ministry, the visits were aimed to see the ongoing activities and the model of Centres of Excellence in India which were established in the collaboration with the Israeli aid agency MASHAV.

 The Government of Nepal also intends to establish CoE in Nepal with the help of Israel to benefit Nepali farmers.

Nepal and Israel signed a bilateral agreement in 2020 to establish seven Centers of Excellence in Nepal in order to bring modern Israeli technology and conduct training for the upliftment of the agriculture sector of Nepal.

During the meeting with the Nepali delegation, the Agriculture Attaché of the Embassy of Israel in New Delhi, Yair Eshel explained to the delegation the model of implementation of the CoE and the role of MASHAV.

He also informed that at present, there are 29 Indo-Israel Centers of Excellence that were fully operational in 12 states in India and more were being established in additional nine states.

According to the Israeli Embassy in Kathmandu, the Centres of Excellence are advanced and intensive agricultural farms for transferring knowledge of Israeli agro-technology tailored to the local conditions.