President of Costa Rica declares the creation of the Plaza of Agriculture of the Americas to be a matter of public interest

San José, 30 August 2019 (IICA). The President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, declared the creation of the Plaza of Agriculture of the Americas to be a matter of public interest. This public space, which will be constructed at the Headquarters of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, will be open to everyone and will demonstrate the value of agriculture and the rural environment.

The declaration was signed by President Alvarado, by Manuel Ventura, the Minister of Foreign and Religious Affairs and by Renato Alvarado, the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock.

Director General, Manuel Otero, spearheaded the creation of this plaza, which will be built at the front of IICA’s Headquarters, in Vázquez de Coronado (San José), in keeping with the concept of an IICA with open doors.

The aim is to integrate this international organization into the community and to make the plaza an educational and recreational site.

Otero maintained that the plaza “will be the symbol of an open IICA that is connected to the community. We want to recognize the value of rural peasant labor and our facility should reflect this. In every way, our headquarters should embody the concept of the Home of Agriculture in the Americas”.

“We want people everywhere to be talking about the importance of agriculture and of the IICA that we are creating: a more sustainable and efficient organization; a provider of technical cooperation of excellence; and an institution promoting greater private sector involvement in areas of benefit to agriculture and rural development”, he added.

A tribute to agriculture

The 455 square meter plaza will feature park and garden spaces and will be able to accommodate more than 230 people, in a surrounding of green spaces.

Yendri Moralas, architect at Greenplan, the firm that is overseeing the construction of the plaza, explained that, “The park will feature plots representing the varied topography of the Americas and will include designs of rectangular, flat and orderly farms, curved and terraced areas. The vegetation will also be representative of the countries”.

There will be a 75 linear meter water trail running along the promenade, and it will be representative of a watershed.

The project is part of IICA’s modernization master plan, which includes the creation of a dynamic and interactive exhibit on tomorrow’s agriculture, the construction of a Rural Costa Rican House (that will be reminiscent of the rural traditions in our hemisphere), the forest of the Americas and the installation of an agricultural innovation laboratory. The latter is already in operation and was developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications (MICITT).

Also planned is a mural on agriculture and urban art.

According to the Director General of IICA, construction of the Plaza of Agriculture of the Americas will begin this year and will be completed in 2020.

More information:

Institutional Communication Division

comunicacion.institucional@iica.int