In his address to the Ministers of Agriculture of Central America, the Director General of IICA highlighted the importance of making decisions to drive the sector’s productivity and competitiveness.
San Salvador, August 25, 2015 (IICA). The Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Víctor M. Villalobos, shared the most significant progress made by the Institute ahead of the most important meeting of ministers of agriculture of the hemisphere, and reiterated the challenge faced by the sector in achieving competitive, sustainable and inclusive productivity.
The exchange took place in El Salvador at the meeting of the Central American Agricultural Council (CAC), which is comprised of the Ministers of Agriculture of Central America.
In the presence of the highest agricultural authorities of the region, Villalobos shared his expectations of the Meeting of Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas 2015, to be held in October in Mexico.
The Director General revealed the main topic that experts and authorities will be discussing at the meeting: how to achieve competitive, sustainable and inclusive agricultural productivity that can also foster inclusion in rural territories.
In El Salvador, Villalobos also referred to the historic resolution
taken by the Executive Committee of IICA at its most recent meeting; this decision succeeded in ending a 20 year-period of inertia during which no consensus was reached on a proposal for increasing the quota that countries pay for the proper functioning of .IICA
“This possible increase will allow us to continue offering our technical cooperation with the same efficiency and transparency. The effort our member countries will have to make in increasing their contributions to IICA will be compensated through concrete actions,” stated Villalobos.
Additionally, he shared the progress made by the Central American Program for Integrated Coffee Rust Management (PROCAGICA), an initiative led by IICA and funded by the European Union, which seeks to implement measures for adapting to climate change in areas where coffee production is vulnerable, thus enabling the populations living in those areas to deal with the adverse effects of environmental phenomena.
More information:
evangelina.beltran@iica.int
