Brasilia, 5 November 2025 (IICA) – Muhammad Ibrahim, on his election to the post of Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) for the 2026-2030 term, pledged to work with all regions of the hemisphere and to prioritize the incorporation of science, technology and innovation to tackle the challenges that the countries and farmers will face.
Ibrahim is a Guyanese agronomist with thirty-five years of experience in international management. He was elected with an absolute majority of the votes of the ministers of Agriculture of the Americas, who are in Brasilia, attending a meeting of the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA), IICA’s highest governing body.
The new Director General will assume office on January 15th of next year, succeeding Argentinian Manuel Otero in leading the hemispheric organization. IICA was established in 1942 and has its Headquarters in San Jose, Costa Rica.
“I am honored and grateful to have been elected to lead this great international institution. I will be a Director General for all regions—Northern, Southern, Andean, Central American and Caribbean—focusing on inclusion and diversity throughout the hemisphere”, said Ibrahim in his acceptance speech. He also paid tribute to the work of Dr. Otero and highlighted the qualities of Uruguayan agronomist Fernando Mattos, who was the other candidate who had vied for this position in the elections.
He also thanked the Brazilian government, who organized the meeting of the IABA and the Conference of Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas 2025, in collaboration with IICA.
The upcoming Director General explained that he would seek to strengthen complementarities among the countries of the Americas, who have heterogeneous production systems, and also noted that IICA will face significant challenges in the future.
Ibrahim is an agronomist with an extensive track record in international management, building networks to increase the productivity and resilience of the agriculture sector in the Americas over the last thirty-five years. He has experience in forging partnerships, mobilizing financial resources, working with decision-makers and establishing key contacts throughout the Americas.
He has a MSc in Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, with a focus on Animal Nutrition from the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica, where he later served as Director General. He also has a PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, with a specialization in Livestock Production and Animal Nutrition from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, one of the most prestigious universities in the world of agricultural sciences.
IICA, in the face of challenges
In his speech, Ibrahim noted that, “The world is currently facing numerous risks and great uncertainty. This has placed IICA at a crossroads. It must address numerous challenges and technical cooperation demands from its member countries in an environment in which resources are scarce”.
He singled out several issues, including fragmented and unstable agrifood systems, agricultural trade challenges, an increasing food demand, price hikes, declining average growth in productivity, environmental threats, vulnerability to outbreaks of pests and diseases and a fragile family farming sector that is the source of most of our food.
He maintained that, “IICA is well positioned to continue its work as a benchmark institution, collaborating with its partners and Member States to tackle these challenges and to make agriculture the engine of prosperity for the countries of the Americas”.
The Director General-elect will strive to strengthen IICA’s technical capacities in science, technology and innovation, as a means of expanding the use of modern and cutting-edge tools. “We must intensify the work that IICA is doing to foster investments aimed at transforming agrifood systems and improving the economic and financial viability of agricultural enterprises and small farmers, in particular”, he stressed.
Ibrahim indicated that he had visited many countries in the hemisphere in the last three months, meeting with key stakeholders in the agriculture sector and taking note of policies that are being implemented and the obstacles that countries must surmount.
“As we look to the future”, he concluded, “I commit to fostering an environment of collaboration, partnership and innovation, while also building on the foundation established by IICA’s current and past administrations. Working together we can make a long-lasting impact on our agricultural and agrifood systems”.
More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int
