Meeting of delegates of the countries of the Americas gets under way

Cancun, 19 October 2015 (IICA). The ministerial delegates of the countries of the Americas today began presenting the positions of their respective States on productivity, development, and rural inclusion, with a view to consolidating an inter-American declaration aimed at promoting joint activities on those issues.

This activity is a curtain raiser to the Meeting of Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas 2015, the most important high-level forum for inter-American agriculture, which will begin on 20 October on the Riviera Maya.

The delegates, the direct representatives of the ministers of agriculture of the Member States of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), will engage in discussions before issuing a mandate on Thursday designed to guide actions in the region’s agricultural sector over the next two years.

The Director General of IICA, Víctor M. Villalobos, was the first to speak at the meeting, underscoring the great responsibility that the delegates have to construct shared desires and common proposals on the topic of agriculture.

“The position that each one of you will have to express is a reflection of the thinking of the heads of the agricultural bodies, and ultimately, of the vision your countries have of agricultural development”, remarked Villalobos.

The Meeting of Delegates is being chaired by Ricardo Aguilar Castillo, Under-Secretary of Food and Competitiveness of SAGARPA in Mexico.

Villalobos informed the meeting that the final declaration approved by the ministers of agriculture would be presented to the Member States of the Organization of American States (OAS), as it forms part of the Summits of the Americas process in which the continent’s Heads of State and Government are directly involved.

In concluding, Villalobos stated that “the Declaration is not binding in the legal sense, but as a political expression, it is of great value because it serves to send a message of Inter-American unity and commitment to the agricultural sector”.

The meeting of delegates will conclude tomorrow. The countries taking part are Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Uruguay, the United States and Venezuela.

More information: héctor.iturbe@iica.int