AGRO-INNOVA, an EU and IICA project, a driver of change and hope for over 4,000 producers in the Central American Dry Corridor

San José, 31 October 2024 (IICA). "The AGRO-INNOVA project helped us achieve a better quality of life, diversify our plots, ensure successful family sustainability, and improve food security. Today, we are farmers with a positive mindset, capable of harvesting even more in the future.”
 
These words come from Catalina López, a leading producer from Guatemala, who spoke at the closing event of the initiative “Adapted Agroforestry Systems for the Central American Dry Corridor (AGRO-INNOVA),” funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). Since 2019, the initiative has promoted sustainable development and poverty eradication in rural communities in this region.
 
Her testimony reflects the impact of this project, which involved more than USD 6.4 million and benefited 4,000 producers over the past five years. The project also focused on improving climate resilience and food security for small-scale producers through the use of technologies for staple crop production and livestock farming to preserve biodiversity, increase productivity, and improve the quality of life for families in the Central American Dry Corridor.
 
This is a highly vulnerable area exposed to extreme weather events, where prolonged droughts are followed by heavy rains, severely impacting livelihoods and food security in local communities.
 
The event, which presented the main achievements and results of AGRO-INNOVA, was held at IICA’s headquarters and brought together more than 150 participants, including authorities, producers, technicians, and representatives from 21 public-private entities in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama, which are all strategic partners of the project.

Impact and Voices of the Protagonists
 
The project intervened in 33 territories across the Central American Dry Corridor, impacting a total of 109 localities and providing direct technical assistance to 1,083 producers.
 
Through robust knowledge management and capacity-building, over 4,000 family farmers and 47 producer organizations were able to implement and scale innovations in Adapted Agroforestry Systems (AFS), contributing to improved productivity, food security, and resilience to climate change.
 
AFS-based production has allowed countries in the region to gain invaluable experience in forest management and utilization on farms, soil recovery and conservation, water resource efficiency for production, and best agricultural practices.
 
Thanks to these practices, the project promoted the adoption of technologies such as bio-input production, soil management and conservation, crop intensification, plant genetic material propagation, productive forest diversification, animal genetic improvement, post-harvest management and food conservation, and the implementation of small-scale water harvesting and irrigation systems.
 
The project’s leading producers and national strategic partners played a central role, contributing through applied research, technology transfer, and agricultural extension with 73 technological solutions in AFS and 34 differentiated technical assistance strategies for projects with producer organizations across over 100 rural communities impacted.

“They helped us to change our mindset; AGRO-INNOVA has impacted all of Central America, and we are committed to carrying the program forward, replicating the knowledge we’ve gained,” said Orlando Jiménez, a leading producer from Panama.
 
At a regional level, with national and local impact, the initiative facilitated the dissemination of gender and youth-focused instruments and mechanisms, such as the “Woman Empowering Woman” program, gender equality training strategies, the “Youth Challenge Agriculture 4.0” for reintegrating rural youth into rural economies, the potential of remote sensing, and geospatial analysis with the EU’s Copernicus Program, as well as knowledge management and capacity-building strategies.
 
"I am very grateful to IICA, the EU, the technical team, and the entire AGRO-INNOVA team. For me, this has been the most successful project. I was tired of other projects, and when this one came along, I hesitated to adopt it. My family and others were reluctant. But with this project, they taught us to crawl and walk, and now we’re going to run. We commit to training new producers and passing the torch to generate income and improve quality of life,” said Katy Moncada, a leading producer from Honduras, addressing the authorities present.
 
“Thank you for believing in us, for teaching us; it has been an investment. We have taken small steps with technology and knowledge, and feeling supported is a success for us,” added Karol Solís, a leading producer from Costa Rica.

Commitment and Support for Future Challenges
 
At the closing ceremony, the main authorities present also emphasized the project’s significance and reiterated their support for continuing actions in this direction.
 
“This project is an example of what can be achieved between IICA and the EU. It is transformative; with your involvement and passion, you are agents of change. We want to help improve climate resilience and food security in the region, and projects like this offer hope, showing what can be done with good agricultural practices. We hope to provide more resources to change lives and ensure that you can continue your agricultural work,” said the European Union Ambassador in Costa Rica, Pierre-Louis Lempereur.
 
“We need these kinds of projects that, through technological innovations, help generate a more dignified life in rural areas, making them prosperous places where jobs are created, and producers and their families can stay in the land they love most. This is especially true in a region like Central America, where 2.4 million family farmers are among the most vulnerable to the climate crisis. We need good practices, both cutting-edge and ancestral knowledge, to successfully meet this challenge,” added Manuel Otero, Director General of IICA.

The Costa Rican Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Víctor Carvajal, also emphasized that “thanks to cooperation and IICA’s good implementation, we have planted a seed in over 4,000 producers, and we hope that seed will continue to grow and spread,” to generate substantial impact and multiply across the region.
 
Odette Varela, Executive Director of the National Center for Agricultural and Forestry Technology (CENTA) in El Salvador, one of the project’s national partners, explained that “the objective of contributing to improving the climate resilience and food security of participants was met” and highlighted the progress made in her country.

“In El Salvador, 1,680 producers were trained, including 577 women and 359 young people. As a result, 936 farmers were able to scale their innovations within the AFS model for climate change mitigation and adaptation. With leading producers, 15 demonstration plots were established where water harvesting reservoirs were promoted, and two bio-input production plants were set up. A total of 403 hectares were registered with multistrata technologies,” she explained.
 
Meanwhile, Pedro Avendaño, AGRO-INNOVA’s Regional Coordinator, concluded that the project achieved its goals and outcomes through synergies and efforts, from the producers’ farms to the operational frameworks of public and private partners, adjusting strategies to each country’s specific conditions and needs. “Today, very positive and transformative changes can be seen in producers, organizations, and technical teams on the ground,” he concluded.

More information:
Pedro Avendaño Soto, AGRO-INNOVA Regional Coordinator. 
pedro.avendano@iica.int

Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int