Welcome to our Third Newsletter of 2016
IICA Representative in the USA,
Head of CAESPA
As the popular saying goes: “times flies….”, especially when we have things to do!, and the IICA Delegation in the USA has been very busy during the time that has elapsed from our last newsletter to today.
During this time, our professionals and staff continued to strengthen IICA´s collaboration with key partners and have conducted important activities that support the Institute´s commitment to provide tangible results to our country members.
In addition to the information reported by our professionals in this newsletter, I would like to briefly highlight other events and activities conducted by this delegation in this period. We have been working to strengthen our collaboration with the USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture and with the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research. We have discussed ways of working together to make research and innovation more significant in the hemisphere and find innovative ways to advance theirs and our own goals.
We have continued to serve at the advisory board of the Institute for Global Food Security of Mc Gill University in Canada, and to support the efforts of the Purchase for Progress Program of the World Food Programme to develop small holder farmers´ friendly procurement programs.
This year, IICA partnered with the World Economic Forum in the organization of the food security sessions at the World Economic Forum Latin America held in Colombia. This meeting provided the opportunity for our Director General to participate in a dialogue with important private and public figures to define actions conducive to create a new vision for agriculture in the region.
We continue our conversations with the private sector in order to find ways to engage them in support to IICA´s mission in the Americas. We met with Dr. Bryan Bedard from Grocery Manufacturers Association, who very kindly offered his advice and views of possible ways to bring the private sector to support IICA´s activities. This is a long road forward, but the first steps have been taken, and we are positive on the belief that the private sector will engage with IICA to advance the development of a competitive, sustainable and inclusive agricultural sector.
This Delegation participated at the Central America Summit, organized by the Borlaug Institute of Texas A&M to look for innovative ways to deal with the pressing issue of rural migration from the countries of the Northern Triangle and to improve the role that agriculture could play in reducing this phenomenon.
In support to our partner, the Global Harvest Initiative, we have participated in the dialogue, analysis and preparation of their “GAP Report 2016”, which will be launched during the World Food Price next October in Iowa. Stay tuned for this report, it contains excellent information regarding the state and challenges of agricultural productivity around the globe. Do not miss it!
This delegation has taken important steps toward the generation of knowledge that could be used by policy and decision makers to improve agriculture around the hemisphere, for this, we are partnering with the International Food Policy Research Institute to analyze the state of agricultural machinery in the continent, with USDA’s Economic Research Service and our sister Delegation in Argentina to conduct an analysis of the impact of the new policy reforms in agriculture, with the Food and Agriculture Organization and the the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean to continue the production of the “Outlook of Agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean” and with many other partners with whom we have interchanged opinions and visions on the pressing challenges that agriculture faces, including those derived from climate change.
Finally, this Delegation wants to recognize the important milestone that the USA has achieved with the signing of the “Global Food Security Act of 2016”, confirming the leadership of this great nation in the pursuit of a more equitable world and we would like to express our congratulations to the winners of the World Food Prize awards, particularly to Dr. Howarth Bouis, which I consider a personal friend.
As in other occasions we open our doors to your comments, suggestions and ideas, please contact us if you think we can be of help.
Sincerely,
Dr. Miguel García-Winder, IICA Representative in the USA, Head of CAESPA
*This post appears in the IICA Delegation in the USA Newsletter – May- June 2016
*The opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors and they do not reflect the position of the Institute on the topics presented.
