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IICA discusses critical issues for agriculture in the Americas
Representatives’ Week, the annual strategic planning meeting of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, was held 19-25 October in Costa Rica. The theme of the event was “IICA, facing the global challenges.”
Four core objectives were set for the activity:
• To increase IICA’s knowledge of topics that are critical for the Institute, with the participation of special guests who gave presentations on selected topics,
• To exchange successful experiences and good practices between and among countries and regions through deeper internal horizontal technical cooperation,
• To coordinate the hemispheric team with a view to implementing the 2006-2010 Medium-Term Plan, and
• To organize national, regional and hemispheric efforts through the priority activities in IICA’s 2006-2010 Medium-Term Plan.
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Jaime Campos Quiroga, former Minister of Agriculture of Chile
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State policies, climate change and transboundary diseases
On the first day, special guests at the meeting discussed crucial topics, such as government policy setting, climate change and agriculture, transboundary diseases and globalization.
Jaime Campos Quiroga, former Minister of Agriculture of Chile, gave a presentation on the genesis and implementation of agricultural state policy in Chile. The former minister led that process under President Ricardo Lagos’ government from 2000-2006.
At the very outset of the Lagos Administration, the decision was made to shape an agricultural state policy in which the nongovernmental and private sectors would participate actively. Six years later, that policy shows signs of success, as demonstrated in higher growth than in the other sectors of the economy, an increase in exports, which rose from $4.72 billion in 1979 to $8.4 billion in 2005, and a 50 per cent share of its agricultural output for external markets.
Former Minister Campos concluded that agricultural policies formulated exclusively by government were destined for failure. He said that policies should be profitable for private stakeholders who, in the final analysis, were the ones who had to implement them; if they were not taken into account, they would not do so.
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Barry Stemshorn, former Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environmental Protection Service in Canada
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Barry Stemshorn, former Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environmental Protection Service in Canada, addressed the issue of the repercussions of climate change on agriculture.
In his judgment, climate change had and would continue to have clear repercussions on agriculture worldwide, even though, he said, what we were working with were projections, the causes of which were still a matter of debate. There would be winners and losers, and among the latter, he referred to the prairie regions where the loss of humidity would cause fluctuations in prospects for output.
Stemshorn called for international and regional alliances to face the repercussions of climate change. One of the benefits of such alliances, he said, would be better quality information for agricultural producers.
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Luis O. Barcos, Regional Representative for the Americas of the World Organization for Animal Health.
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The Regional Representative for the Americas of the World Organization for Animal Health, Luis O. Barcos, spoke about these diseases which, “without passport or visa,” crossed national and regional borders, encouraged by globalizing trends which, have made it easier to transport goods and people, for example.
“Preventing, controlling and eradicating diseases, such as foot and mouth disease and avian influenza, require close and coordinated effort between the public and private sectors. This is not a task for veterinarians. It is multidisciplinary in scope. It cannot be the work of a single veterinarian, country or international agency. It is the work of all of us,” he said.
He also recommended sustainable policies for quality veterinary services. “We need minimum standards in all countries. If one country has inadequate veterinary services, this becomes a problem for the country, for the region and for the rest of the world,” he said.
For more information:
patricia.leon@iica.int
Poverty and hunger pose challenge for Latin America and the Caribbean
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IICA Director General Chelston Brathwaite highlighted the commitment of FAO, ECLAC and IICA to work together. He is pictured with Jose Luis Machinea.
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The economies of Latin America and the Caribbean will grow less in 2007 than in 2006, said the Executive Secretary of ECLAC, Jose Luis Machinea, at the Headquarters of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). The Executive Secretary called for a development agenda that responded to the challenges in the region.
Machinea and a number of other high-ranking officials from international agencies took part in Representatives’ Week, IICA’s annual strategic planning event. Other guests included the FAO’s Regional Representative for Latin America, Jose Graziano Da Silva.
The Director General of IICA, Chelston Brathwaite, said that the presence at the meeting of the high-ranking officials from the FAO and ECLAC illustrated the commitment of these three organizations to “work together.” Working together, he said, was a commitment that the FAO, ECLAC and IICA had taken on in aid of their peoples and it was also a mandate of the countries.
Growth without volatility or inequity
The Executive Secretary of ECLAC said that Latin America and the Caribbean should seek growth that was neither volatile nor inequitable. The region would experience a 5 per cent growth rate in 2006, but in 2007, that rate would slow to 4.5 per cent. Our region was growing less than the other developing economies, largely because of sluggish growth in Brazil and Mexico, he said.
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Jose Luis Machinea, Executive Secretary of ECLAC.
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“The good news is that the regional economy, which was stagnant until 2002, has rebounded. The challenge is how at least to sustain that growth,” added Machinea. Another challenge was reducing volatility, which had a negative impact on investment, for example.
As for poverty, he said that economic growth over the last four years had not been sufficient to reduce poverty and build more just societies. There were 213 million poor people in the region and more than 80 million indigents. Income distribution was persistently unequal, he said.
In his opinion, reducing poverty and inequality would contribute to greater social cohesion by providing Latin American and Caribbean people with “a sense of belonging to a common and inclusive project.”
The development agenda proposed by ECLAC includes six key elements:
• Reducing real volatility
• Productive policies for equity and growth
• Inclusion and integration into world markets
• Public policies for social cohesion
• Public policies for environmental sustainability and inter-generational equity, and
• Institutional development based on consensus (the importance of the state)
IICA / FAO Partnership
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The FAO’s Regional Representative for Latin America, Jose Graziano Da Silva.
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In April this year, FAO and IICA signed a document giving concrete reality to a broad strategic partnership in the framework of which major progress had been made, said the Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean of the FAO, Jose Graziano Da Silva.
Graziano proposed the management of agricultural information as a regional priority for joint effort in the period 2007-2008. This initiative, he explained, would make it possible to rely on a common information base for the analysis of agriculture and rural life; develop a conceptual and operational basis with regard to rural, agro-industrial and expanded agriculture issues. In this effort, ECLAC would also participate.
Over the next two years, Graziano suggested working with IICA on the basis of subregional priorities. He said that for Central America, we should focus on food security, food safety and rural development; for South America, the issues should be plant and animal health, trans-boundary diseases and food safety. The priorities for the Caribbean and the Andean subregion would be defined at a later date.
FAO’s focus, he maintained, was on food security and fighting hunger, which were its priorities. Increasingly it was turning its attention to the lower-income countries of the region.
Representatives’ Week 2006 took place 18-25 October at IICA Headquarters.
Mayor información:
Patricia.leon@iica.int
IICA has a new Director of Agricultural Health
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Dr. Ricardo A. Molins is IICA’s new Director of Agricultural Health.
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With a Ph.D. in food technology and a specialization in economics from Iowa State University, Ricardo A. Molins will contribute his vast professional experience to the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) as its new Director of Agricultural Health and Food Safety (AHFS).
On behalf of the institution and its staff, IICA Director General Chelston Brathwaite extended a cordial welcome to the specialist, who joined the organization on 1 November.
Dr. Molins, an American citizen, has broad experience in food safety and the related national and international regulations (Codex Alimentarius, USDAFSIS, APHIS and FDA regulations, etc.). His other areas of expertise are capacity building, the development of policies and standards, training in food control and evaluation, and risk management related to foodstuffs (HACCP, GMP, GAP and GLP).
He has had a long and distinguished professional career. Between 1999 and 2005, he was the Study Director of Food Chemicals Codex and Senior Program Officer on Food Safety for Food and Nutrition Board at the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, in Washington D.C.
Between 1994 and 1999, in Vienna, he served as Food Safety and Irradiation Specialist at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Food and Environmental Protection Section of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division for Food and Agriculture.
In Central America, between 1990 and 1994 he was the Director of the Food Safety and Quality Assurance Laboratory and Program at the Salvadoran Foundation for Social and Economic Development; a member of the Board of Directors of the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT); and Chairman of El Salvador’s Codex Alimentarius Committee and El Salvador’s Official Representative to the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
He was also a consultant and lecturer on HACCP for FAO in Central America and Panama, and a professor at Iowa State University and Guatemala’s Universidad Rafael Landívar. Drawing on his enormous experience, he has given national and international courses and seminars and is the author of numerous publications, books and technical reports.
During his professional career, Dr. Molins has received many awards, including the Iowa State University Research Excellence Award and the Food Science Award granted by the Institute of Food Technologists in Iowa.
For more information:
GestionRecursosHumanos@iica.int
CAMIC defines agenda for first Annual Forum
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Ronald D. Knutso, of Texas A&M University, and the Deputy Director General of IICA, James Butler, listened attentively to the planning committee’s observations.
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With a view to supporting the expansion of trade and the development of the agricultural sectors of the five Central American countries, the Dominican Republic and the United States, representatives of the public and private sectors of those nations met 24-25 October at IICA headquarters to prepare the first actions in this field.
The planning committee of the CAFTA-DR Agrifood Market Integration Consortium (CAMIC) met for the first time to establish the agenda for the first Annual Forum, scheduled for next year.
CAMIC is a joint public-private initiative whose objective is to develop and share information that will promote the discussion and a greater understanding of the integration of the agricultural and food markets of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the United States and the Dominican Republic, all of which are members of the CAFTA-DR.
The planning meeting was sponsored by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Farm Foundation, an American nonprofit organization.
During the meeting, the participants identified the issues of greatest interest and importance, so they can be discussed and studied during the first Forum. They also drew up a list of possible analysts, commentators and special guests.
The members of the planning committee who took part were the Deputy Director General of IICA, James Butler; Ronald D. Knutso, of the Agricultural and Food Policy Center of Texas A&M University; and, representatives of the governmental, civil and private sectors of the CAFTA-DR countries.
Some of the issues that the Forums will address are:
• Policies for the transition
• Market access
• Policies
- Agricultural policies
- Policies for development
• Financial Support / Direct Foreign Investment
• Culture of producers. Business orientation
• Competitiveness. New Opportunities
• CAFTA
- Institutional challenges
• Market integration
- Nationalism vs. Regionalism
- Lessons learned from trade treaties
- Regional integration
The following issues were defined as a priority for the first Forum: Nationalism vs. Regionalism; Lessons Learned from Free Trade Agreements; Trade Integration, Policies for Transition (Financial Cooperation); Competitiveness (Supply Chains and Culture of Producers); and Market Access.
For more information:
Carolina.Pelaez@iica.int
Agro-energy: a possible solution to the energy crisis
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La Agroenergía en la matriz energética was written by Benedito Rosa do Espirito Santo
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How and when will be the end of the Oil Civilization? What new components will make up the next energy matrix? What are the options? The current energy crisis is undoubtedly one of the world biggest challenges.
In his book La Agroenergía en la matriz energética, Benedito Rosa do Espirito Santo, the Representative of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in Argentina, proposes new ways of meeting the challenge, making use of renewable energy sources.
The ten chapters of the work address issues such as agro-energy’s share in the energy matrix, bio-fuels, the crops and plants used to produce these new inputs, and a comparison of the production costs of new and traditional fuels.
One of the chapters describes the new Brazilian and Argentine bio-diesel programs and highlights the main characteristics of Brazil’s groundbreaking efforts in the production of bio-ethanol over the last 30 years.
In 86-page publication, Rosa do Espirito Santo points up the contributions of other energy sources, such as hydrogen and wind, nuclear and solar energy, and analyzes the situation of the plant oil market.
The book can be obtained from the IICA Office in Argentina. For more information, visit the Studies and Publications page of the Office’s website (www.iica.org.ar/estudiosypub.htm)
For more information:
benedito.rosa@iica.int
IICA promotes strengthening of MIOA
To strengthen the Market Information Organization of the Americas (MIOA) and give continuity to its activities, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) presented a proposal for work over the medium term during the organization’s recent Regular Meeting.
During the meeting, held in September in Cartagena de Indias, over 50 delegates and guests from the MIOA member countries discussed technical and administrative issues linked to the organization’s work at the national, regional and hemispheric levels.
The objective of the MIOA is to promote sharing and cooperation among institutions involved in the collection, processing and dissemination of information from agricultural markets in the hemisphere.
IICA has been a member of the network since April 2004 and operates its Technical Secretariat, thereby making a direct contribution to the coordination and execution of the organization’s activities and projects and the management of its resources.
Several presentations were made at the meeting on the activities carried out by each of the Agricultural Markets Information Systems (SIMAs). Another presentation focused on the use of information technologies by farmers, based on the findings of a study commissioned by the SIMA of Chile.
One of the key topics discussed during the activity was the importance and urgent need to incorporate the Caribbean countries into the organization. The participants considered the possibility of holding a meeting in the Caribbean region during 2007 to publicize the MIOA and its objectives.
IICA put forward a medium-term work plan that would give continuity to the organization’s activities and make it a more solid institution. The Executive Committee of the MIOA acknowledged the contribution that IICA had made to the organization in implementing and monitoring the various activities carried out under the Inter-American Program for the Promotion of Agricultural Trade, Agribusiness and Food Safety.
Another of the presentations made during the activity focused on the findings of research on the strengths and weaknesses of the market information systems of each of the MIOA’s member countries. The findings of this study were used to draft the “Definition of the Best Practices of the SIMAs,” a guide to the implementation of procedures and practices designed to enhance the systems’ efficiency and effectiveness.
IICA will continue to support the MIOA, first during the Seventh Meeting of the Executive Committee and, in 2007, for the Sixth Regular Meeting, scheduled to take place in Quito, Ecuador.
For more information:
Arlington.chesney@iica.int
Jamaican receives award from Alliance for essay
Omari Soares, 24, drew on his experiences in rural Jamaica to write the essay that won him the top regional award granted by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in that category. In his monograph, Mr. Soares questioned whether the “New Agriculture” could change lives in the Caribbean.
The competition was sponsored by IICA on behalf of the Secretariat of the Alliance for Sustainable Development in Agriculture and the Rural Milieu in the Caribbean (The Alliance).
The enthusiastic young author, who hails from Green Acres, in Spanish Town, told the press that his essay focused on the enormous financial impact natural disasters had on agriculture and how this affected family economies.
He also emphasized the importance of agriculture for medicine, and by extension, for agro-biodiversity, biotechnology and bio-extraction, and the opportunity it offers governments, industry, tourism and research to contribute to rural development.
Soares, who is a technical information officer, received a trophy, a certificate and a trip to Bahamas that coincided with the Caribbean Week of Agriculture (2-8 October).
The Weekend Star newspaper reported that he was clearly excited and humbled by the honor and said he hoped that his suggestions would be taken into consideration in developing policies for the new agriculture.
For more information:
marikis.alvarez@iica.int
IICA Office in Grenada praised for its contribution to the development of women
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The Lalittes farm together for the family business.
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A member of the Grenada Chapter of Caribbean Network of Rural Women Producers (CANROP) has praised the IICA Office in that country for its “development initiatives” on behalf of Grenada’s agriculture sector.
Mavis Lalitte, a former executive member of the Grenada Chapter of CANROP, is the key person in a family-owned and operated small agribusiness enterprise located in the impoverished rural village of Telescope on Grenada’s eastern coast.
Mavis, her husband and her two sons are the proud owners and operators of M&Rs Co. Ltd. This company produces high quality snacks (plantain, banana and breadfruit chips), seasonings, hot sauce, three types of cheese (made with guava, West Indian cherry and mango, respectively) and hot dog relish.
Most of the raw materials for manufacturing come from the Lalittes’ half-acre farm. Small plots of corn, seasoning pepper and chive also form part of the farm’s crop rotation.
M&Rs Co. Ltd was formed in 1998 when Mavis and her husband were still employed in the Public Service but were actively seeking a “retirement project.” In the beginning, the company produced local fruit juices, using mainly passion fruit, ginger and lime. However, operations ceased in 1999 due to the increased cost of inputs and a consequent low level of profitability.
That same year, Mavis’ husband, Raleigh Lalitte, retired from the Public Service and, together with his wife and two sons, resumed the company’s operations, embarking on new product lines. Plantain, banana and breadfruit chips were produced for the local market (schools, supermarkets, village shops and private homes).
Unfortunately, in 2004, Hurricane Ivan devastated Grenada’s agriculture sector, and the company’s source of raw materials was destroyed. The small building (adjacent the family house), which the company used as its factory, was also damaged by the hurricane.
In August 2006, the company resumed operations producing not only chips, but also a number of new products, including cheese, sauces and relish made from fruits and vegetables. According to Mrs. Lalitte, the company is now considering the possibility of producing cassava chips.
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Not even the destruction caused by Hurricane Ivan could halt the efforts of these small-scale agricultural entrepreneurs.
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She praised the IICA Office in Grenada for having empowered her, through its many relevant workshops in which she participated throughout the years. In particular, Mrs. Lalitte is thankful to IICA for its “initiative in organizing Small Business Management Workshops to empower us in evaluating our agribusiness financial situation.”
“IICA has also assisted in giving us the opportunity to use the computer to communicate with companies and organizations and share information for our operations.”
Mrs. Lalitte also mentioned the training opportunities that had allowed her to translate the knowledge and information acquired into practical benefits for her agribusiness.
The IICA Office in Grenada is proud of Mrs. Lalitte’s achievements and those of other local rural women producers who are members of the national chapter of CANROP.
Taken from IICA ECS News
For more information:
iica.lc@iica.int
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