The road to the agricultural research summit: Agriculture in the Americas favorably positioned to meet the challenge of feeding the world

San Jose, Costa Rica, October 26, 2012 (IICA). Thanks to its plentiful land, water reserves, biodiversity, exporting experience, and institutional development, as well as its private and family farming sectors, agriculture in the Americas is uniquely positioned to feed the world’s population. In order to meet this enormous challenge, however, it must innovate more, and more effectively.

This is the argument to be advanced by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) at the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2), scheduled to take place in Punta del Este, Uruguay, from October 28 through November 1, 2012. The Institute’s delegation, headed by Director General Víctor M. Villalobos, will be comprised of innovation specialists.

The summit – the most important of its kind in the world – is intended to promote changes in agricultural innovation systems, in order to meet worldwide hunger- and poverty-reduction goals, raise the income of smallholder farmers, increase access to food for disadvantaged sectors, and ensure the environmental sustainability of agriculture.

The conference is organized by the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), which brings together the various hemispheric systems devoted to the issue. IICA plays an active role in the Forum, serving as the Technical Secretariat of the Forum for the Americas on Agricultural Research and Technology (FORAGRO), which is itself a part of GFAR.

In preparation for the meeting, which will include over 600 researchers from around the globe, IICA has drafted a technical paper which summarizes its main positions on agricultural innovation and the ways in which it can empower production, competitiveness, and trade in the organization’s 34 member countries, as tools for the attainment of food security and development.

In the words of the Director General, “Partnerships are essential to ensuring that Latin America and the Caribbean increase the efficiency and productivity of their agricultural sectors and feed their growing populations, while also minimizing the negative impact of agriculture on ecosystems and promoting its adaptation to climate change.”

The quest for partnerships is, precisely, one of three main topics on the GCARD2 agenda. The other two are foresight for impact and capacity development – subjects which IICA will also address, and which are explained at length in its technical paper.

The paper also notes that “agricultural development is increasingly dependent upon cooperation and complementarity between a diversity of stakeholders, the capabilities and skills required by new technological, institutional, and market realities, and the establishment of long-term priorities.”

Strengthening innovation

IICA believes that national innovation systems are indispensable to the renewal of agriculture. As stated in its technical paper, “technological, institutional, and business innovations feed off one another and evolve together.”

IICA promotes innovation in these fields. At the institutional level, it has developed methodological frameworks for the modernization of national agricultural research institutes (INIAs). In the technology sector, it operates a system which allows 21,000 researchers, extension officers, and producers to exchange scientific information and innovative experiences. In the agribusiness sector, it promotes mechanisms that facilitate collaboration between businesses and research institutions.

According to the Institute, technology and innovation play a key role in mitigating and adapting to climate change in the agricultural sector. In terms of adaptation, IICA promotes the transfer of knowledge to increase irrigation efficiency and reduce the water footprint. In terms of mitigation, it promotes carbon footprint measurement and reduction, the development of good agricultural and livestock practices, and energy efficiency.

The paper notes that “technology and innovation are also essential to the improvement of food security”, and stresses the importance of technologies that increase crop productivity, reduce post-harvest losses, and utilize the biodiversity of Latin America and the Caribbean as a means of generating food alternatives – particularly for family farmers.

It adds that “biodiversity is an important – and still largely unexplored – source of innovation. It is particularly useful in terms of addressing the challenge of food security and climate change. Its sustainable use will require a greater investment in knowledge and research.”

The world is currently witnessing a convergence of different types of agriculture, including conventional, organic, and biotechnology-driven approaches. Information and communication technologies, as well as nanotechnology and other technologies resulting from combinations of the above, are playing an increasingly prominent role in this regard.

At GCARD2, the Institute will outline its approach to supporting its member states: “IICA does not endorse or reject any particular technology. Its mission is to offer technical, scientific, well-supported information, as a means of facilitating the analytical processes required by countries in their decision-making processes.”

For more information, contact: 
arturo.barrera@iica.int