The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (MAGA) of Guatemala and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) are busily preparing to welcome the ministers of agriculture of the hemisphere to the Week of Agriculture and Rural Life of the Americas, which will begin on July 23 in Antigua, Guatemala. The Week’s activities will include the Fourth Ministerial Meeting “Agriculture and Rural Life in the Americas” and the Fourteenth Regular Meeting of the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA). Important fora will also be held with key stakeholders in agriculture and the Ministerial Delegates GRICA 2007. In message to meeting participants, the Director General, Chelston Brathwaite, urged to participate strategically and proactively, saying “the contributions and proposals of the ministers are fundamental to move forward with the joint and collective of building up agriculture and a rural milieu that are prosperous, competitive and sustainable and achieving a better standard of living for rural communities in the Americas.”

The Director General of IICA, addressing the “Conference on the Caribbean – A 20/20 Vision” held in June, said “We, in the Caribbean cannot develop to be world class societies if we depend on others to produce what we eat, drink and wear." He also told his audience that “food is not only a basic right, but access to food is the most basic requirement for social equity and peace in our world.” The aim of the conference, attended by Heads of State from the Caribbean, government authorities and representatives of the public and private sectors, was to strengthen the existing relationship between the U.S. and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a 15 Caribbean nation group.

Deputy Director General James Butler is spearheading efforts by IICA personnel in Washington and at Headquarters to prepare for the Institute’s 65th anniversary, which will be made to coincide with “IICA Day,” to be held on October 3 at the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C. Participants in the event will hear about how the Institute has evolved to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and will learn of some of the most important cooperation actions IICA carried out in the each of the regions of the Hemisphere.

In the interest of promoting agricultural and rural development in the Dominican Republic, efforts are under way there to protect the agricultural and rural sectors under the Free Trade Agreement signed with the United States. Public and private stakeholders in agriculture and rural life in the Dominican Republic recently attended a seminar “Agricultural policy reforms and trade opening: the complementary agendas for the FTAs with the United States” where they analyzed the prospects for the application of the DR-CAFTA in the sector. The seminar, held in late June, was organized jointly by IICA and the Secretariat of State for Agriculture of the Dominican Republic, with support from the country representatives of various international organizations and the Latin American Trade Network (LATN).

The Minister of Agriculture of St. Kitts and Nevis, Cedric Roy Liburd, met with IICA Advisor for Caribbean Affairs, Arlington Chesney, and the Director of Regional Operations and Integration for the Caribbean Region, Trevor Murray, to discuss the transition under way in his country away from sugar cane. During the CARICOM Agriculture Donors Conference, held recently in Trinidad and Tobago, the participants endorsed the idea of seeking alternative types of energy that will benefit the countries of the Caribbean. In St. Kitts and Nevis, the sugarcane industry is in crisis, making it necessary to develop new agroindustries. Sugarcane has long dominated the agricultural scene of this country and its decline provides fertile ground for discussions on new opportunities.

In recent weeks, IICA concluded a proposal for a project on the development of organic agriculture in Central America. The goal of the proposal is to strengthen and support authorities in the region that work in this field area and to serve as input for the organic production agenda of the Central American Agricultural Policy. This policy, whose formulation has involved the Executive Secretariat of the Central American Agricultural Council and IICA, and other regional and international organizations, was submitted to the countries of the region in May for their consideration.

IICA and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), through its International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) Division, have formed a partnership for the purpose of identifying the level of agricultural research and technological development for agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean. Their goal is to quantify the investment in research throughout the hemisphere, and to identify those institutions and human resources working in these fields. These data will be used to design better policies and improve decision making in both the public and private sectors.

The actions, progress and 2008-2009 plan of the IICA Hemispheric Working Group on Biotechnology and Biosafety were analyzed in a meeting held in June. The meeting was attended by representatives of Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Canada and the United States of America. Also, the Institute participated in Mexico in the 2007 Agrifood Forum “Bio-economy: myth or reality,” where it made presentation on “The impact of new technologies on the agricultural sector.”

As part of the Initiative for the Americas, IICA provided support for the participation of 26 countries of the hemisphere in meetings of the WTO Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. The participants debated the application of private norms and the establishment and use of international norms.

At a meeting held on May 31-June 1 in Buenos Aires, progress was made in preparing the work plan for the regional avian influenza project. This project is being spearheaded by the Ministers of Agriculture of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, meeting at the Southern Agricultural Council (CAS), with support from IICA and the World Bank. During the meeting, a preliminary version of the plan was prepared for presentation to IICA’s partners.

More news...