IICA’s Director General attends Caribbean Week of Agriculture in Barbados and meets with Ministers of Agriculture from the region
“Strengthening agriculture for a healthier future in the region”.
Bridgetown, Barbados, 8 October 2018 (IICA). As of this Monday, Manuel Otero, Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), will be in Barbados to attend the Caribbean Week of Agriculture 2018, the region’s premier event for this sector. While there, he will be received by high-level authorities in the country and will meet with Ministers of Agriculture from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
Caribbean Week of Agriculture is being convened under the aegis of the Alliance for Sustainable Development of Agriculture and the Rural Milieu, and this year’s theme is “Strengthening agriculture for a healthier future in the region”.
During his remarks in Barbados, Otero commented that, “Caribbean Week of Agriculture is a strategic platform for strengthening alliances between different partners and key actors in the agrifood system and donors in the Caribbean, in order to carry out concrete recommendations to stimulate greater investment in the sector and to prompt commitments that will foster an environment conducive to the formulation of policies that result in sustainable agrifood systems”.
The Director General also emphasized the Institute’s role as a bridge between the countries of the Caribbean and Latin America, and its ability to generate and open up new opportunities for intra-regional cooperation and trade.
He also disclosed that the new Medium Term Plan (2018/ 2022 MTP) of this Inter-American Organization, which specializes in agricultural development and rural well-being, “has identified agricultural health, safety and food quality, and climate change adaptation, as two of the main areas that require focus, and that, together with other core areas, will contribute to strengthening the agriculture sector, to ensure a more productive and healthy future for the Caribbean region”.
To this end, Otero also explained that the MTP, IICA’s institutional roadmap, “in recognizing the Caribbean’s unique circumstances, has proposed the application of a differentiated strategy for the region that seeks to create sustainable food production systems and a robust and resilient agriculture sector.
Since the 90s, IICA, in collaboration with the CARICOM Secretariat, has been the driving force behind Caribbean Week of Agriculture, an event that is designed primarily to place agriculture and rural life at the forefront of the attention of governments and regional integration mechanisms.
In 2002, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) joined forces with IICA and CARICOM to establish a core group that serves as the Secretariat of the Alliance for Sustainable Development of Agriculture and the Rural Milieu. Since that time, the four entities have collaborated on the management and logistics necessary for conducting the numerous activities during Caribbean Week of Agriculture.
Another major partner that has sponsored the activities of this regional event since 2003, is the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA).
About IICA
IICA is the specialized agency for agriculture in the Inter-American system, with a mission to encourage, promote and support its 34 Member States in their efforts to achieve agricultural development and rural well-being through international technical cooperation of excellence.
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Sergio Navarro, Journalist, IICA