The Director General of IICA, Chelston Brathwaite, met with the President of the IDB, Luis Alberto Moreno, at the OAS General Assembly held in Panama from June 3-5. Brathwaite explained to Moreno that the member countries of the Institute are very interested in IICA’s becoming the executing technical arm of the Bank for agricultural and rural development programs and projects. At its most recent meeting, held on May 15-17 in Costa Rica, the IICA Executive Committee supported the efforts undertaken by the General Directorate to strengthen ties with the IDB and other international financial institutions. It did so in light of the fact that the Bank has been reviewing its financing policies for the region in order to bring its priorities into line with the mandates issued as a result of the Summits of the Americas process and the efforts that the countries of the hemisphere have been making to achieve the Millennium Goals.

Considerable progress was made in advancing IICA’s agenda during the Regular Meeting of its Executive Committee, held on May 15-17 in San Jose, Costa Rica, and attended by delegations from 17 countries. Summarizing the advances made during the meeting, Director General Chelston Brathwaite mentioned the reports the Executive Committee had received on progress in the technical assessment of the Institute, on implementation of the 2006-2010 Medium Term Plan (MTP), and on preparations for holding the most important hemispheric forum on agriculture and rural life in July in Guatemala. In addition, the financial affairs of the Institute were reviewed and the 2008-2009 Program Budget and the report of the external auditors were approved. As regards implementation of the 2006-2010 Medium Term Plan, the Director General noted that this document had marked the beginning of the process to make the Institute a more development-oriented organization that could assist its Member States in modernizing agriculture and reducing rural poverty. The countries sitting on the Committee this year were: Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Dominica, Ecuador, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. Also attending were delegations from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and the United States of America. Four delegations were headed by ministers.

Deputy Director General James Butler is heading up the team that is organizing the Institute’s 65th anniversary celebration. The main ceremony will be held at OAS Headquarters in Washington, D.C. in October, and will coincide with IICA Day, during which the Institute will report to the Permanent Ambassadors on some of its most important cooperation actions.

IICA and the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety of the University of Minnesota (CAHFS) have signed a Letter of Understanding aimed at reinforcing the capabilities of the countries of the hemisphere in the area agricultural health and food safety. Both organizations will launch a series of activities in which they will address topics such as leadership in food safety. The signing ceremony, held in late May, and was attended by Deputy Director General James Butler, Director of Agricultural Health and Food Safety Ricardo Molins and IICA AHFS Specialist Ana Marisa Cordero.

With support from IICA, national consultations on the Central American Agricultural Policy conducted in Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Belize, as well as a regional consultation held in Honduras, concluded in May. The Sixth Meeting of the Working Group from the Ministries of Agriculture of Central America, which is responsible for coordinating actions related to the policy, was held in May also. Representatives of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) attended the meeting and made presentations on financial programs that could contribute to the execution of the policy. Also, a workshop was held to analyze the strategic areas and instruments that will make it possible to formulate the second stage of the process, based on the experience gained in preparing and implementing Chile’s State Policy on Agriculture. One outcome of the workshop was a proposed work plan that will be submitted to the consideration of the Ministries of Agriculture of Central America.

Agricultural health specialists from Central America attending a two-day seminar received the latest information on a topic of great importance for international agrifood trade: traceability. IICA Headquarters was the site, in late May, of the “International Seminar on Traceability; International Requirements and Experiences.” At the seminar, attended by some 180 participants, experts from Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Costa Rica, Canada and Chile made presentations made on experiences in traceability. The purpose of the event was to exchange information on programs developed in other countries and provide scientific inputs to be used in formulating a project for Central America. On this same topic, the Andean Region has begun to systematize data for the project Harmonization of Agricultural Traceability Systems, using information generated in events and workshops held in different countries.

A group of 40 professionals and small-scale producers from the dairy sector in Chile visited Uruguay to learn about the milk production systems and the technologies applied in that country. The tour was organized under the auspices of the joint IICA/Ministry of Agriculture of Chile (INDAP) technical cooperation project. Support was provided by the Agricultural Plan Institute (IPA), a Uruguayan organization which, together with IICA and the Chilean embassy in Uruguay, recently held a workshop on the potential for exchanges between Chile and Uruguay in the area of livestock development.

Faced with the unprecedented demand for corn for ethanol production, especially in the United States, which is the main supplier for Central America, the Central American Ministers of Agriculture agreed to a regional response strategy in light of this situation. This was announced in Costa Rica by the Secretariat of the Central American Agricultural Council which reported a special agreement adopted on April 20 in San Pedro, Belize, by the Ministers of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

More news...