The seventh edition of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) Global Workshop was held in Latin America for the first time, co-organized by IICA. Approximately 150 specialists from six continents participated in a global workshop.
Approximately 150 specialists from six continents participated in a global workshop held at IICA’s headquarters in San José, Costa Rica to present scientific advances and discuss the challenges and opportunities regarding agriculture, climate change, and food and nutrition security. The seventh edition of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) Global Workshop was held in Latin America for the first time, co-organized by IICA.
Over three days, April 24-26, researchers from around the world, presented the latest advances in methodologies and tools to link climate, crop, livestock, nutrition and economic modeling communities with information technology designed to provide insight into the challenges facing the global agricultural sector. A focus of the discussions was how to more broadly incorporate short-term climate risks, especially extreme events. AgMIP also emphasized the needs of decision makers and ways to build links between the research and policy processes, as well as the urgency of communicating clear, actionable messages to support decision-making.
This was a particular focus of the two LAC-focused side sessions, where bridging the gap between the supply and demand for modelling outputs were discussed, as well as opportunities to inform the development and implementation of climate change focused policies (especially National Adaptation Plans and the Nationally Determined Contributions) and other public and private investments made through projects and programs. Participants from the Caribbean, Central and South America defined priorities for their region and ways to bolster AgMIP’s activities there.
In 2017, AgMIP and IICA signed a MoU to support countries in the development of science based climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies and develop capacity in the region to use modeling tools and outputs. The partnership capitalizes on AgMIP’s scientific expertise with modeling tools to enable integrated assessment as well as IICA’s position as the specialized technical cooperation agency of the Americas to promote the development of science-based strategies to guide the agricultural sector the face of climate change.
For more information: Kelly Witkowski, Agriculture and Climate Change Specialist at IICA kelly.witkowski@iica.int
*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.
*This post appears in the IICA Delegation in the USA Newsletter – March – April 2018
