Pawar heads for Moscow for BRIC meet on farm output

Pawar will hold main discussions with his BRIC counterparts on March 26. “The effort by the four countries will also be to come out with a declaration on the issue,” officials said.

On June 16 last year in the backdrop of the global financial crisis and fluctuations in global food prices,the BRIC’s summit attended by Prime Minister Singh issued a joint statement on food security that rejected attempts by developed nations to explain food price hikes by the increase in overall consumption. It maintained that countering the global food crisis is “impossible without a clear and full understanding of its causes”.

Besides global climate change,restricted market access and trade distorting subsidies in developed nations contributed in inhibiting development of food production capacity,it said. Adequate incentives for expansion of agricultural production in developing and least developed countries,which have become main importers of food,had not been created,the joint statement said.