Madam Chairperson,
Mr. President,
Distinguished Governors,
Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my pleasure to represent India in the 36th Session of the Governing Council of IFAD.  On behalf of India, I compliment IFAD, particularly the President, in steering the activities of IFAD over the past years.

India has always valued its relationship with IFAD and we are looking forward to new, meaningful and a high degree of cooperation in the coming years. India regards IFAD as the only multilateral development organization that provides dedicated investments for rural development and small scale agriculture, with a clearly defined focus on small farmers. I would like to stress that India would welcome new projects with focus on innovations in agriculture for enhanced productivity and technological up-gradation. 

The theme for this year’s interactive session, “the power of partnerships: forging alliances for sustainable small holder agriculture” is extremely relevant as most of the developing countries including India have significant population dependent on agriculture and a large part of this population is small and marginal farmers.  In India, small holders constitute 83 percent of our farmers.  They operate about 41 percent of the total cultivated area and yet have 51 percent share in the value of agriculture output, thereby making a significant contribution to the national food production and to agricultural GDP. 

The biggest challenge, therefore, is to ensure that the small holders do not get excluded from the benefits of the growth process in India as well as in other countries.

Another area of challenge is ensuring food security especially for the poor and the marginalized. With the instrumentalities of innovations and partnerships, IFAD is challengingly positioned to combat the problems of food security and poverty. To achieve all these, we are confident that IFAD will relentlessly pursue its objective of financing agriculture development projects primarily for food production in developing countries.  We in India are committed to provide necessary support to IFAD in achieving the objectives of the fourth strategic framework for the period 2011-15. 

We sincerely hope that IFAD will be able to come up with strategies for forging new partnerships for small holder agriculture.  There is a need to deliberate on evolving suitable models for partnerships between farmers, private sector and the government in agriculture and rural development.  A transparent farmer-industry partnership where farmers retain confidence about the ownership of the land and protection of their interest is a key to rural transformation.

India will be happy to learn from the experiences of other countries and at the same time, we are willing to share our experiences in implementation of several flagship programmes like Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme, Water Shed Development programme, Public Distribution system, etc.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the President on a highly successful IFAD 9 replenishment, even as the world struggles with an ever deepening economic crisis. India is proud to sign the largest single loan of IFAD last year under your Presidentship.  We are also pleased to have chaired the evaluation committee through the crucial period when IFAD undertook several critical assessments. 

To conclude, I would like to reiterate that India expresses its full support to President Nwanze in the years to come and looks forward to a stronger and more robust partnership with IFAD. 

I thank you, Mr. Chair.