- The agreement between the Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development and IICA reaffirms their joint commitment to consolidating innovative strategies, fostering food sovereignty and optimizing sustainable natural resource use.
- IICA will provide 1,625,000 dollars to fund actions to control and eradicate the New World screwworm (NWS).
Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRICULTURA), Julio Berdegué Sacristán, and the Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Manuel Otero, signed the General Cooperation and Project Management Agreement to drive coordinated actions in the areas of rural development, food security, competitiveness, productivity, health, safety and agrifood quality.
As part of the collaboration plan stemming from this agreement, IICA will provide approximately 1,625,000 dollars to fund actions to control and eradicate the New World screwworm (NWS), in addition to other strategic projects in agriculture.
This amount will include one million dollars from the Institute itself, with the remainder being resources administered by IICA, but contributed by IICA’s strategic partners and partner international institutions. The funds will be earmarked for technical cooperation projects in priority areas, with a special focus on agricultural health and food safety.
The agreement reaffirms the organizations’ joint commitment to consolidating innovative strategies, fostering food sovereignty and optimizing sustainable natural resource use, while addressing climate change challenges in agriculture.
Secretary Julio Berdegué explained that Mexico has been an IICA member since 1980 and the Institute has made significant contributions to the country’s agriculture sector, “including by participating in the eradication of the New World screwworm in 1970 and 1980. We look forward to IICA’s continued collaboration”.
IICA Director General, Manuel Otero, noted that, “The Institute is assigning these resources to enhance the efforts of the Government of Mexico and the Central American countries, ratifying our commitment to remain close to the needs of our Member States. This type of pest requires a multi-country, regional approach and cooperation stands to play a key role in the process. Stemming from conversations with Mexican authorities, we have allocated funds to build a verification point in Cosamaloapan, Verecruz for cattle entering Mexico, among other actions”.
NWS represents a challenge for animal health in the Mesoamerican region. Concrete control measures will include improvements in sanitary inspections, strengthening of protocols governing the transportation of cattle and training programs on the prevention, containment and effective eradication of this disease, targeting technical staff, producers and labs.
With these actions, Mexico continues to strengthen its international ties to improve the agrifood sector and to ensure productivity, competitiveness and sustainability for national agricultural producers, thereby representing a further step in the food security strategy, with which we have been tasked by the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo.
The agreement reaffirms the organizations’ joint commitment to consolidating innovative strategies, fostering food sovereignty and optimizing sustainable natural resource use.
More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int
www.gob.mx/agricultura | https://iica.int/es/countries/mxico-es/
