The great North-South divide between the developed industrialized western nations and the developing and under developed economically backward nations with respect to adopting appropriate mitigation measures to deal with challenges of Climate Change has significant impact on global agriculture.
By Saikat Kumar Basu
The lack of cooperation, coordination, collaboration and communication (4Cs) between First and Third World countries on various aspects of Climate Change issues is only sliding down our strategies to cope with Global Warming and related global geoatmospheric changes negatively impacting both our ecology and economy.
Without close cooperation there is very little chance that we would be able to deal with Climate Changes at a global scale impacting the future of our global agriculture. Furthermore, we are loosing our natural biological pollinators at an astonishing rate. Loss of honey bees and native (wild) bees along with other pollinator insects, snails and slugs, birds and small mammals like bats have significant negative impacts on our ecology and economy. Around 85% of flowering plants are dependent on biological pollinators like bees to propagate. Several anthropogenic factors such as over application of toxic chemical pesticides, pollution, prevalence of various parasitic diseases and Colony Collapse Disorders (CCD, poor immunity, lack of suitable melliferous flora and changes in land use patterns are collectively resulting in catastrophic bee and other insect population collapse around the globe.
Loss of pollinators means destruction of our agriculture, apiculture and forestry industries leading to economic disruption and ecological stabilization. Sustainable, environment-friendly approaches like establishing Pollinator Sanctuaries has been proving to be effective five in bee conservation and local biodiversity enrichment with promising future. There is opportunity for both India and Canada to collaborate and work in a common platform for both climate change mitigation as well as pollinator like bee conservation. The rich expertise and experience of both countries can support one another in a comprehensive manner. There are some lacunae between the two countries in sone areas that has impacted the relationship over the past few years. However there is huge potential for both countries to engage and work together in the following key areas:
1. Strengthening people to people contact.
2. Naval and military cooperation.
3. Increasing use of Nuclear, wind, geothermal and hydro power technologies for civilian purposes
4. Forest conservation
5. High altitude abs remote location road construction and infrastructure development
6. Increasing agricultural imports and exports
7. Expanding cooperation in modern agriculture, irrigation technologies and biodiversity conservation
8. Cooperation in areas of marine engineering and technology, mining activities and processing of industrial products and byproducts.
9. Reducing dependency on fossil fuels and work together to explore use of various modern alternative energy resources
10. Exploring forage crop industries in both countries and establishing forage crop production to boost local livestock and cattle.
11. Exchange knowledge and experience in expanding the livestock and dairy industries.
12. Promote both conventional and non-conventional tourism (eco tourism) in both countries
13. Encouraging exchange of soft powers between India and Canada and to make it beneficial for both parties in a sustainable fashion
14. Exchanging snow and ice based technologies between two countries as Canada is a pioneer in this area and could serve as a big help for India.
15. Cooperation in North Pacific security establishment could be a win win for both countries
16. Genetic and biological exchanges of animal, plants and microbial materials will boost agriculture and forestry industries, open up tourism and increase employment
17. Cooperation in use and processing of products related to iron and steel, fertilizer and petroleum-chemical industries
18. Increase in exchange of new military technology and equipment for both countries
19. Open border trade agreement to boost economy on both sides.
20. More stronger socio-cultural, socio-political and socio-economic engagements between the two countries are essential now