The Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas affirmed that collective action is essential to guarantee the food safety and strengthen the role of agricultural activity in the development of the countries of the region, in a context of climate change and economic crisis.
In that sense, they anticipated that the Conference of Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas, which meets starting today in San José, Costa Rica, will be an opportunity to promote joint actions that promote sustainability and exchange knowledge and positive experiences.
(Read also: Climate change is changing the color of the ocean, according to study).
The headquarters of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) will be the setting for the Conference, which brings together the ministers of the hemisphere between October 3 and 5. Other high national authorities and international organizations, globally recognized academics and representatives of the productive and industrial sector will also participate in the debates.
At the opening of the event, messages were heard from the Minister of the Environment of the United Arab Emirates, the country that this year will host COP 28, Marian Almheiri; the CEO of the World Food Prize Foundation (WFP), Terry Branstad; the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of Costa Rica, Víctor Carvajal; and the host of the meeting, the Director General of IICA, Manuel Otero.
The ministers, who began to meet under the motto ‘A continental alliance for food security and sustainable development’agreed that it is crucial to promote strategic alliances that include the public and private sectors and promote the role of technical cooperation to build a more productive and resilient agriculture.
Some of the agenda topics of the 2023 Conference of Ministers of Agriculture will be social inclusion and family farming, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, water crisis, incorporation of digital technology, financing of science and research applied to agriculture and international trade.
(Also: The world must work ‘much harder’ to stop climate change, warns the UN).
Within the framework of the Conference, the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA), the highest governing body of IICA, will be held, made up of the 34 Member States of the organization of the Inter-American System specialized in agricultural and rural development. For Colombia, the Vice Minister of Rural Development attends the event, Martha Carvajalino.
For his part, the Director General of IICA, Manuel Otero, considered that no country
can face the multidimensional crisis that the planet is experiencing in isolation, and technical cooperation is a fundamental tool.
“The challenges are shared and we must face them at the supranational level, outlining reforms in technical cooperation. The presence of our agriculture ministers is crucial to achieving these objectives,” she noted.
Juan Carlos Dominguez
SPECIAL FOR THE WEATHER
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