A Canadian delegation, now on a visit in this part of the country, is looking to renew its agreement with the Farm Varsity here and explore investment and research opportunities between Saskatchewan province and the State of Tamil Nadu.

In a breakfast meeting with BusinessLine , organised by the Coimbatore Region Development Council at The Residency this morning, Andy Melynk, Head, Regional and International Engagement, Innovation Saskatchewan, said he has been frequenting India in the recent months to explore the interest and opportunity in the area of Crop Science research, collaborate and promote partnership in processing technologies.

“Agriculture is a big part of our economy and we export huge volumes of the farm produce without much value-addition to India, among other countries.

We want to understand the trading relationship and make it more productive. It is in this context that we are trying to renew Saskatchewan’s agreement with TNAU and make it more specific, unlike the earlier one, which was rather broad in nature.”

Prospects

Saskatchewan Province is also working to see if an opportunity exists for industry investments such as development of a joint Centre of Excellence for water security, facilitating joint pulse crops research programmes between research entities, exploring adaptation of Canadian farming technologies to farming conditions in Tamil Nadu and towards establishing a pilot project to field test Saskatchewan-developed water treatment and waste water recovery technologies in the State, he said.

Further stating that Saskatchewan is Canada’s second largest oil producing province, he said, “The daily production is over 4.70 lakh barrels of oil, of which 70 per cent is being shipped to the US.

“The world’s richest Uranium deposits are located in Northern Saskatchewan. We anticipate that the Uranium produced there could add to India’s growth and help it move towards clean energy.”

He is hopeful of the first such project getting started in the next six months.

The Chairman of Coimbatore Region Development Council KG Balakrishnan has proposed twinning of Saskatchewan Province with Coimbatore region.