IICA launches website to support collective action by the countries of the Americas aimed at positioning the region’s sustainable agriculture at COP27

San Jose, 27 October 2022 (IICA) – “Towards COP 27” is the title of the web page that the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) has already made available to the public with full details of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27) that is due to take place in Egypt from November 6-18.
 
The page (available at https://cop27.iica.int/en) offers detailed information about the strategic role of the region’s agriculture sector in tackling climate change, and the contribution it will make to the upcoming event, as the eyes of the world turn to Sharm El Sheikh.
 
The Conference of the Parties (or COP) is an annual summit meeting of technical experts, ministers, heads of state and government, and representatives of non-governmental organizations, during which decisions are taken to achieve the objectives of the fight against climate change.
 
The continent will be taking important messages to Egypt, in which it will emphasize that climate actions designed to achieve more sustainable agriculture must be based on science, so they protect and increase productivity and do not deepen the already worrying food crisis.
 
The Americas will have their own pavilion in Egypt
 
Included on the web page are digital pictures of the House of Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas, a pavilion that will be installed in the Sharm-El-Sheikh Convention Center, where the conference is to be held. The slogan for the Americas will be “Feeding the World, Nurturing the Planet.”
 
This major initiative by IICA, its member countries and international partners is designed to show how agriculture in the Americas is resilient to climate change and can provide concrete examples for the mitigation and adaptation efforts of agri-food systems around the world.
 
The House of Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas will provide a place for dialogue for the main actors in the agricultural sector of the Americas, such as ministers and secretaries of agriculture, representatives of the private sector and academia, producers, climate change specialists, and senior officials from other public and private sectors, who will be able to gain a detailed understanding of the current state of climate governance in the region, and the opportunities that exist for strengthening international climate action.
 
Also available on the website are videos in which leading figures from the agriculture sector of the Americas explain why the discussions and the decisions taken in Egypt will be of vital importance for the sector.
 
The participants will include Rattan Lal, Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center (C-MASC) of Ohio State University, the world’s leading authority on soil science, as well as IICA’s Special Envoy to COP27; Laura Suazo, Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock of Honduras; Esteban Valenzuela, Minister of Agriculture of Chile; Santiago Bertoni, Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of Paraguay; Christian Asinelli, Corporate Vice President of Strategic Programming of CAF-Development Bank of Latin America; and Ayman Amin, Minister Plenipotentiary and Deputy Director of the Department of Environment and Sustainable Development of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, the country hosting COP 27.
 
The web page also affords access to IICA publications that contain concrete examples of how agriculture in the Americas is progressing towards sustainability, showcasing resilient, climate-smart forms of production that make highly efficient use of natural resources, with farmers playing a key role.
 
The examples show how agriculture has the potential to reduce its vulnerability to climate risks while at the same time making a bigger contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Good agricultural practices, such as conservation agriculture, minimum tillage, agrosilvopastoral systems, water management, and improvements in soil health, provide numerous benefits, which are explained in IICA’s publications.

More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int