Leaders of Rurality of the Americas recognized by IICA were received at the Ministry of Agriculture of Chile

Santiago, 27 May 2024 (IICA) – Five of the six Chilean farmers recognized by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) as Leaders of Rurality of the Americas for their contributions to rural life, their stories of innovation and sustainability, and their key role in food security and conservation were received by authorities from Chile’s Ministry of Agriculture.
 
Hernán Chiriboga, IICA Representative in Chile, accompanied Bernarda Salazar, Alfredo Carrasco, Emilio Sepúlveda, Macarena Valdés, and Marco Aceituno to meet with high-level authorities of Chilean agriculture and share a message of commitment and work for the agriculture of their communities. Paulina Carrasco, another Chilean leader recognized by IICA, could not travel to Santiago due to scheduling conflicts.
 
"This recognition of Chile’s farmers, of Chilean agriculture, makes us very proud, and we wanted to share it with the Ministry of Agriculture of Chile, and also the acknowledgment of the strength of rural women, their innovative character, and their role in preserving our heritage. Also important is the support they received from their country, as each of them has been backed by or has worked in some way with the services of the Ministry of Agriculture of Chile," explained Chiriboga.
 
IICA launched the Leaders of Rurality of the Americas initiative in 2021 to recognize and give visibility to those who, through their daily work, fulfill a dual, irreplaceable role: being guarantors of food and nutritional security while also safeguarding the planet's biodiversity.
 
As part of this initiative, leaders from 21 countries traveled to Costa Rica in April, where they held meetings with global experts in agricultural development, cooperativism, and financing, among other topics.

At the meeting, the Chilean leaders were received by Chile's Undersecretary of Agriculture, Ignacia Fernández, to whom they explained their work and presented the topics discussed in Costa Rica.
 
Additionally, producer Alfredo Carrasco, from FarmHability in the O’Higgins Region, spoke about the need for greater support in business management; the role that rural leaders can play as bridges between institutions and their peers to inform about territorial realities; and the importance of motivational work with new generations to present rural work as a world of opportunities and better quality of life.
 
Also present at the meeting was the National Director of the Institute for Agricultural Development (INDAP), Santiago Rojas, who congratulated the group.

"We are here today with an innovative group of people who have developed incredible projects. We thank IICA for taking them to other countries outside of Chile so they can share and continue strengthening their projects and international networks. And we thank you, for sharing your challenges with us; we will see how we can help you, so you can become role models of rural life, creating local training and exchange opportunities, not from an institutional level, but directly from the producers, which is where knowledge from family farming can be generated."
 
Undersecretary Fernández added: "We hope that their leadership will also help us build bridges with other stakeholders, other farmers, other producers who want to implement innovations and changes for positive rurality and agriculture. The Ministry of Agriculture of Chile is committed to family farming, but certainly, together with these leaderships, we can advance much further in the development of the sector."

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