Participants included delegates from the Ministry of the Environment and the Rural and Maritime Milieu of Spain (MARM), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain (MAEC) and the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development (AECDI), as well as members of the United Nations Organization for Agriculture and Food (FAO), the Agrifood Research and Technology Institute of Catalonia (IRTA), the Spanish Rural Development Network (REDR) and other organizations.
The Director General took the opportunity to express his gratitude for the cooperation the Government of Spain has provided, through its Ministry of Agriculture, to IICA’s Permanent Office for Europe for the last eight years. As a result, the Office has become the gateway to the Continent and a conduit for countries and organizations of the European Union to channel support to agricultural and rural development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
As a lead up to this meeting, the Spanish Rural Development Network (REDR) and IICA signed a technical cooperation agreement calling for the joint implementation of rural development projects in the 34 member countries of the Institute and in Spain.
The visit to Madrid was the first stop on an official visit that will take him to France, Italy, Switzerland and England, where he will meet with senior officials of government organizations, development agencies and private enterprise.
The new development model
“Earlier development models, and even some current ones, have an anti-rural bias, advocate industrialization to modernize the economy, and favor the growth of urban areas,” he noted.
To overcome this situation, he proposed achieving a better rural-urban balance, through the integral development of both areas; encouraging greater investment in the rural milieu, essential to ensuring social and political stability; and promoting the competitiveness of agriculture and the economic activities of the sector.
The proposed development model is aimed at creating more jobs in the agricultural and non-agricultural sector, and calls for increasing the production and supply of food to meet the needs of consumers and markets.
“There are those who are calling for a new green revolution. However, they need to recall the negative aspects of such revolutions, which exclude small-scale farmers, create dependence on pesticides and fertilizers, pay no attention to nutritional considerations and contaminate soils and aquifers,” he noted.
The proposed model takes into consideration six basic component: adoption of national policies that support a multidimensional and multisectoral approach to agriculture and rural life; formulation of strategies aimed at increasing investment in agricultural research, promotion of innovation and technology transfer; promotion of new curricula in the agricultural sciences; institutional reform of the Ministries of Agriculture; adoption of new policies on food consumption and nutrition; and creation of a global partnership to reduce food insecurity worldwide.
He also said, “Food security must become a fundamental part of the planning of development and must be tied to the agricultural development policies that are part of national development goals.”
Long before the crisis in food prices of 2008, was already engaged in efforts to find short-, medium- and long- term solutions to food insecurity.
According to official statistics, by 2050 the world population will have climbed from 6 billion to 9 billion and will require twice as much food, but there will be less land available for food production.
For more information, contact
soraya.villaroya@iica.es