Urgent need for innovation in agriculture will define the agenda of the Meeting of Ministers

San José, Costa Rica, October 7, 2011 (IICA). To enable farmers in the Americas to increase their production, despite their limited quantity of natural resources, and to do it with quality, health and safety, countries must strengthen their national innovation systems and transmit that knowledge to agricultural farms.

In addition to these challenges, small and medium-scale producers must transform their activities into businesses that generate economic and social well-being for rural territories, goals that can also be promoted through technological innovation.

With these prioritary objectives on the agenda, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Costa Rica (MAG) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) outlined the details of the Meeting of Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas 2011, to be held in San Jose, on October 19-21.

Laura Chinchilla, President of the Republic of Costa Rica, Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Gloria Abraham, Minister of the MAG and Victor Villalobos, Director General of IICA, will participate in the inaugural ceremony of the Meeting.

Prabhu Pingali, Deputy Director of Agricultural Development Policy and Statistics of the “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”, will give the keynote address. One of the strategic axes of this international organization is cooperation on agriculture as a means of overcoming poverty. Its approach has been aimed at the Asian and African regions.

Innovation: a vital issue

“The Meeting of Ministers addresses the significant issue of innovation, not only as a challenge, but also as an opportunity”, noted Gloria Abraham during a meeting with international journalists and correspondents, accompanied by the Director General of IICA.

Ms. Abraham emphasized that the Meeting of Ministers will be useful for suggesting new ways of carrying out agriculture activities, and as such, the hosting of the Meeting is of great benefit to Costa Rica.

“We are a country with a strong vocation for agriculture and agri-food activities and we have assumed the responsibility of developing agriculture with a new perspective, one in which we cease to consider primary production as the only end,” he added.

Victor M. Villalobos, for his part, stressed the urgent need of innovation: “We want the ministers to participate in the dialogue on how technological innovation will play an increasingly important role to ensure food security and adaptation of agriculture to climate change.”

Innovation for sustainable, competitive and inclusive agriculture will be the topic of the forum to be held on the second day of the Meeting, in which Alicia Barcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Ruben Echeverria, Director General of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Pedro Antonio Arraes Pereira, President of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), Pamela Cox, Vice President for the Latin America and the Caribbean Region, World Bank, and Hector Malarin, Chief of Environment, Rural Development and Disaster Risk Management, IDB will participate.

On that day, during the session of the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA), the highest governing body of the Institute, the Ministers will discuss ways in which to strengthen the technical cooperation that IICA provides to its Member States.

Ms. Abraham and Mr. Villalobos highlighted the importance of joint development of agricultural research by the countries of the Americas, as well as the need to establish strategic partnerships between IICA and international organizations such as ECLAC and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), to the benefit of regional agriculture.

On October 21, Jose Graziano da Silva, Director General-Elect of FAO, will address the participants. Also on that day, IICA, ECLAC and FAO will present a new joint report on the status and outlook for agriculture in the hemisphere.

According to the Director General of IICA, the Meeting will culminate with the signing of the San Jose Declaration of Ministers of Agriculture 2011, in which the countries will send a message on the possible contribution of technological innovation to achieve food security.

For further information, please contact: 
patricia.leon@iica.int
rbrenes@mag.go.cr