In address to the Mexican Senate: Director General of IICA appeals for support towards innovation in agriculture

Mexico, D.F. November 10, 2011 (IICA). Addressing the participants attending a forum held at the Senate of the Republic of Mexico, Victor M. Villalobos, Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), asked: How are we going to feed a growing world population? He answered his own question by saying “Innovation, which means doing things differently and better than we have over the last four decades.”

The Director General was invited to Mexico to participate in the forum “What kind of country do we want and what role should the countryside play in this project?”

During his presentation, entitled “Innovation for developing the agricultural sector,” Villalobos noted that the phenomena affecting the sector can be economic, such as the volatility of prices in recent years; climatic, such as the increasingly frequent natural disasters; or the consequence of policies, such as macroeconomic or trade-related policies.

“The answer is to formulate State policies that are in keeping with the decisions, idiosyncrasies, laws and social and political context of each country. What is important is that they be long-term policies aimed at achieving high-impact objectives agreed upon by the different stakeholders, so that they will be sustainable over time,” he said.

For IICA, he mentioned, there are four topics and objectives that are necessary for all countries, and are precisely the areas in which the Institute provides technical cooperation:

• To make the agricultural sector more productive and competitive 
• To increase the contribution of agriculture to the development of rural territories and the well-being of the population 
• To contribute to mitigating the effects of and adapting to climate change by making more effective use of natural resources in agriculture 
• To increase the contribution of agriculture to food security.

“In addition”, he pointed out, “there is a key element we must consider if we want to take full advantage of the potential of the agricultural sector for generating economic growth and ensuring social well-being: innovation.”

“Without a doubt”, he continued, “ we must foster the creation of national innovation systems by formulating public policies that promote innovation and investing the necessary resources, which may be available in the countries themselves”.

In his judgment, institutions must support the two fundamental pillars of innovation systems: research and development, on the one hand, and the preparation of human resources, on the other.

“The NARIs, created as research centers in the 1970s, no longer meet the needs of the agriculture of the 21st century, are very costly to operate and produce little. We must re-think their structures and operations and, of course, invest in them,” he added.

In concluding, Villalobos asked the senators, deputies, business leaders and representatives of rural organizations to view agriculture as a sector capable of driving development, given the different areas in which it plays a key role:

• Energy: agriculture consumes a lot of energy, but may offer alternative forms of energy that are environmentally friendly. 
• Financial markets: we have already seen the global consequences of volatility in the prices of raw materials, food, and agricultural inputs. 
• The environment: agriculture contributes to and can help to reduce the impacts of climate change, and plays a key role in the use and conservation of natural resources for future generations. 
• Employment, health, education and, of course, food production, as well as poverty, which is concentrated in rural territories. Several studies have shown that growth in the agricultural sector does more to reduce poverty than growth in any other sector.

The Director General of IICA was accompanied at the head table by Senators Jose Gonzalez Morfin (Chair of the Head Table), Manlio Fabio Beltrones; Carlos Navarrete; and Heladio Ramirez (Chair of the Rural Development Commission); Miguel Ruiz Cabañas, Mexican Ambassador to Italy and FAO; Juan Carlos Cortes, Chair of the National Agricultural Council) and Alejandro Diaz, President of the Rice Products System.

For more information, contact: 
gino.buzzetti@iica.int