Participants in Conference reflected on the role of universities in meeting effectively and creatively the needs of their countries.
Nairobi, Kenya, December, 2009 (IICA). The Director General of IICA, Chelston W.D. Brathwaite, in Nairobi, Kenya, to participate in the Sixth Conference of the Global Consortium of Higher Education and Research for Agriculture (GCHERA), proposed a new model for development that will contribute to ensuring a more even urban-rural balance and lead to more and better investments in the rural milieu.
For Brathwaite, both conditions must exist to ensure social and political stability, promote competitiveness and spur economic growth in agriculture.
The CCHERA, whose theme this year was Food, Health and Energy: Challenges for Sustainable Agriculture was an opportunity for the exchange of knowledge on modern technologies, scientific visions and cultural trends in the training of undergraduate and graduate students around the Globe.
Others agricultural topics discussed were food security, health, sustainability, energy, challenges and profiles of university graduates, and climate change.
The Conference was a platform for higher education in agriculture and gave the agricultural research community an opportunity to commit to working together to meet global challenges.
Regarding the new model for development
The Director General said “Earlier models for development, and even the current ones, have an anti-rural bias; rely on industrialization to modernize the economy; and favor the growth of urban areas.”
Brathwaite, who is from Barbados and has headed the Institute since 2002, stated that a new model for development is urgently needed in order to generate more employment in the agricultural and non-agricultural sector. In addition, he said that efforts to increase productivity and the food supply must be aimed at meeting the needs of consumers and markets.
“There are those who are calling for a new green revolution. However, they must recall the negative aspects of the last one, which excluded small-scale farmers, led to a dependence on pesticides and fertilizers, attached no importance to nutrition and contaminated soils and aquifers,” he noted.
The new model being proposed takes into consideration six basic components for its execution, to wit: the adoption of national policies that will support a multidimensional and multisectoral approach to agriculture and rural life; the development of strategies to increase investment in agricultural research and the promotion of technology innovation and transfer; promotion of new curricula in agricultural sciences; institutional reforms of the Ministries of Agriculture; adoption of new policies on food consumption and nutrition; and the consolidation of a global partnership focused on reducing food insecurity worldwide.
He added that “food security must become a fundamental part of the planning of development and must be linked to agricultural development policies that are part of national development goals.”
Long before the food crisis in 2008, IICA had undertaken a number of efforts to offer short-, medium- and long-term solutions that will help improve the food security situation.
Official projections call for the world population to grow from six to nine billion people by 2050, which means that twice as much food as is now consumed will be required despite the fact that there will be less land on which to produce it.
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