Deputy Minister of Agricultural Affairs of Colombia: IICA can assist in strengthening family farming

a Viceministra de Asuntos Agropecuarios del Ministerio de Agricultura de Colombia, Marcela Urueña Gómez — “In the case of Colombia, we will work to align sanitary admissibility processes with six priority issues that must be addressed when searching for markets: foot-and-mouth disease, classical swine fever and Newcastle disease, as well as Fusarium, the fruit fly, and HLB in citrus fruits, whose presence in Colombia’s agriculture sector was recently identified”, she remarked.

San Jose, 31 October 2019 (IICA). - The Deputy Minister of Agricultural Affairs at the Ministry of Agriculture of Colombia, Marcela Urueña Gómez, stated that her country could benefit from the work programs of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in areas such as family and peasant farming as well as bioeconomy.

This was among her remarks during the ministerial meeting of the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA), the highest governing body of IICA, which comprises the ministers of agriculture of the western hemisphere.

“With respect to the contributions that Colombia could receive from IICA, our agricultural policy proposal for 2018-2022 strongly emphasizes the strengthening of family and peasant farming, because we believe that this can contribute to peace-building in Colombia’s rural territories”, she remarked.

Deputy Minister Urueña also listed a few potential contributions of the Agricultural Health, Safety and Food Quality Program of IICA, which represents a powerful tool to support agricultural exports from the member countries of the agency specializing in agricultural and rural development.

The program focuses on fostering a productive, competitive and sustainable agriculture sector that supplies safe food through local, regional and global markets, by generating, improving and implementing policies on agricultural health as well as food safety and quality.

“In the case of Colombia, we will work to align sanitary admissibility processes with six priority issues that must be addressed when searching for markets: foot-and-mouth disease, classical swine fever and Newcastle disease, as well as Fusarium, the fruit fly, and HLB in citrus fruits, whose presence in Colombia’s agriculture sector was recently identified”, she remarked.

In this regard, the Deputy Minister noted that “IICA, as the institution responsible for providing agricultural cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean, can serve as a focal point, serving as a platform for all countries to engage in dialogue regarding these topics and to facilitate scientific cooperation processes”.

She also highlighted the importance of IICA’s Bioeconomy and Production Development Program, which seeks to increase agriculture’s contributions to economic growth and sustainable development.

“The circular economy and criteria for fostering sustainable and responsible growth, for the benefit of future and current generations, are key issues championed by President Iván Duque’s administration”, she indicated.

“President Duque has included these topics in his government program, under the slogan ‘Produce while preserving, and preserve while producing’, which expresses this philosophy. Therefore, the bioeconomy topics that IICA is beginning to promote make a lot of sense within the framework of Colombia’s government proposals”, she concluded.

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Institutional Communication Division, IICA

comunicación.institucional@iica.int