The agreement was signed by Matthias Lüttges, Director of Elfin, and Muhammad Ibrahim, Director General of IICA.
Cork, Ireland, 19 June 2026 (IICA) – The Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Muhammad Ibrahim, signed an agreement in Ireland with the German organization Elfin that will facilitate access to international financing opportunities, capacity building for small-scale producers, value chain integration, and compliance with social, environmental, and governance standards.
The IICA Director General, who is in the Republic of Ireland to participate as a speaker at IFAMA, one of the world’s largest events related to the agricultural sector, signed the agreement with Elfin, a Germany-based organization specializing in agricultural sector transformation strategies as well as sustainability measurement and reporting.
The agreement seeks to strengthen IICA’s institutional, technical, and communication capacities to advance its objectives of contributing to economic prosperity, poverty reduction, food security, sustainability, resilience, and decent work in the Americas.
Areas of cooperation include the development of schemes that help governments integrate nature-based financing mechanisms and generate income through positive environmental impacts; the design and implementation of scalable programs for knowledge exchange, good agricultural practices, and the empowerment of rural communities; and facilitating connections between producers and countries and international clients, digital platforms, and high-value markets.
The Director General of IICA—who signed the agreement with Elfin Director Matthias Lüttges—participated in the 2026 World Conference of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA) in Cork, Ireland.
The event brought together a diverse range of stakeholders from more than 40 countries with the aim of strengthening agrifood systems amid a context marked by geopolitical shifts, innovative technologies, climate variability, price volatility, changing consumer demands, and food safety risks.
During the conference, Ibrahim emphasized that the Americas are vital to global food, energy, and environmental stability.
“The Americas,” he explained, “possess an extraordinary wealth of resources that will become even more important in the future: land, water, biodiversity, biomass, tropical forests, productive soils, farmers, businesses, research institutions, and innovation capacity. These resources are crucial because agrifood systems will need to address several challenges simultaneously: producing more food, reducing emissions, restoring ecosystems, adapting to climate challenges, replacing fossil-based inputs and materials, and building more resilient supply chains.”
In that regard, the IICA Director General said that agriculture in the Americas must transform itself and demonstrate how to produce more and better food with fewer resources, greater resilience, enhanced sustainability, more value for producers, greater confidence for consumers, and increased inclusion for rural communities.
“Potential alone is not enough. The future contribution of the Americas will depend on transforming science, technology, and innovation into real solutions at scale. That is the transition the region must accelerate: from potential to leadership and from production to transformation,” said Ibrahim.
Photo caption: The agreement was signed by Matthias Lüttges, Director of Elfin, and Muhammad Ibrahim, Director General of IICA.
More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int
