The 3rd Working Group Meeting of D-8 Seed Bank was held from 3-4 July 2012 in Izmir, Turkey, with the participation of expert delegations from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria and Turkey. The meeting was organized by the Ministry of Agriculture of Turkey, and held at the International Agricultural Research and Training Center – the birth place of the Working Group back in 2009. 

 

The 3rd meeting was an important, productive event for sharing of views and experiences, especially in terms of discussing more tangible steps towards the realization of the decisions made by the Ministerial Council on D-8 Food Security (Kuala Lumpur 2008).

 

During the first day of the two-day meeting, the delegations made a visit to the National Gene Bank of Turkey at Aegean Agricultural Research Institute in Menemen, Izmir. 

 

On the second day the meeting also discussed the 14 decisions taken at the Seed Bank Development and Management and Investment In Fertilizer Production Workshop (15-17 May 2012, Abuja, Nigeria), and produced a number of recommendations.

 

The national report on Iran’s Seed Bank Project, as an example of concrete D-8 cooperation project, attracted the attention of the participants and was widely discussed and commented on. The Iranian delegation was asked to develop the presentation into a workable project. It was agreed that the project proposal, once developed and finalized, could be submitted by the Secretariat to the funding agencies such as the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), African Development Bank (ADB), and World Bank for financial support. In this regard, the meeting also took note of the MoU signed in 2010 between the D-8 Secretariat and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

 

The complete report of the meeting, inclusive of all relevant Annexes, will be circulated in the coming days and will also be available for download from the D-8 Website.

 

The photos of the meeting can be viewed from the gallery of the website by clicking here.