Located at FAA headquarters in Rosario, the room is designed to promote distance learning and connectedness for young people in rural areas.
Rosario, Argentina, 19 May 2025 (IICA). To promote the participation and training of young people and to enable them to interact, the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA) inaugurated its Youth Room, equipped with the latest technology and supported by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
The room, installed at FAA headquarters in the city of Rosario, aims to facilitate connectedness and distance training for young people in rural areas.
The FAA, an organization with a long tradition in Argentina, an agricultural powerhouse, was founded in 1912. It is a service-based association of small and medium-sized farmers whose origins date back to the so-called Grito de Alcorta (Cry of Alcorta), when producers united to demand better leasing conditions and fair prices. Thus, the Federation emerged as a tool to defend producers’ rights and improve their living and working conditions.
The President of the FAA, Andrea Sarnari, inaugurated the space, accompanied by IICA Director General Manuel Otero via video link. Others taking part included IICA’s Representative in Argentina, Fernando Camargo; the FAA’s First and Second Vice Presidents, José Luis Volando and Claudio Angeleri; the Youth Secretary, Agustín Fantino; and the Finance Secretary, Sebastián Klug.
The initiative includes technical activities, meetings, and training sessions aimed at strengthening leadership and promoting youth empowerment.
Sarnari explained that, in the new room, the Agrarian Federation’s younger members will hold communication activities, workshops, and lectures, thus providing opportunities for personal and collective growth.
He also emphasized that it is a space designed to strengthen the organization of associations of rural youth and will make it possible to hold training activities with connectivity and technological tools that will help bridge the digital divide and encourage young people to remain in Argentina’s rural territories.
The collaborative project includes a program of technical activities, meetings and training sessions to strengthen leadership and promote youth empowerment.
Giving agriculture the importance it deserves
“By making such spaces a priority, we’re also prioritizing our sector, on which food security, the dynamism of rural areas, and even the peace of our societies depend,” Otero said.
The IICA Director General emphasized that the inauguration of the Youth Room was a further example of the fruitful cooperation between the two institutions, and embodied their shared vision regarding the need to promote collective action to foster rural development and strengthen agrifood systems.
“We have 15 million small farmers in the rural areas of Latin America and the Caribbean, whom we must support with policies and extension strategies so they can be key players in the transformation of agriculture,” he added.
With support from IICA, the Argentine Agrarian Federation inaugurated its Youth Room in Rosario, a technological space designed to promote the participation and training of young people in rural areas, and to enable them to interact.
“Ultimately,” he concluded, “this space is more than just a well-equipped room; it’s an investment in our human capital in the countryside, a catalyst for innovation and participation, and a tool for building more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient agrifood systems.”
More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int
