The Tribune

By Victor Villalobos

THE second decade of the 21st century has brought new challenges and opportunities for agriculture in the hemisphere, with the sector and the region increasingly being viewed as the next global breadbasket, a challenge as big as feeding the estimated world population in 2050: nine billion.

There is no question that the potential exists, with recent studies showing that our countries have a third of the world’s fresh water resources, more than any other region in per capita terms. We also possess more than a quarter of the world’s farmland with medium to high productive potential and form part of the largest net food-exporting region.

In addition to possessing an abundance of resources, the Americas is home to millions of farmers with vast experience

and capacity to innovate, as well as talented human resources working in agriculture and in relatively strong institutions and markets.

In short, unlocking that potential is crucial if we are to meet one of the greatest challenges facing humankind – that of achieving food security – but also to confirm agriculture’s role in relation to that important objective.

More than 71 years ago, visionary men identified the need for an agency specialising in agriculture for the Americas with an objective that is just as relevant today: that of promoting agricultural development and rural well-being. It was thus that the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) was born. Since then, the organisation has consistently identified new challenges and opportunities and, most importantly, evolved as an international technical cooperation agency that is continually able to respond to the new needs of the agricultural sector.

The Institute provides its cooperation through daily, close and permanent collaboration with its 34 member states, whose needs it addresses expeditiously in order to achieve an agricultural sector that is more inclusive, more competitive and more sustainable. Without a doubt, IICA’s most valuable asset is the close relationship it maintains with the beneficiaries of its work.

But the Institute can improve the efficiency, effectiveness and relevance of its technical cooperation by interpreting correctly the continuous changes taking place in the agricultural sector and having a clear understanding of the mandates issued by the countries. For that reason, it is vital to update strategic planning and operating instruments on a regular basis.

Our member countries are of the same opinion and have approved a medium-term plan for the next four years. The plan reflects our renewed commitment to strengthening IICA’s technical capabilities in order to tackle the huge challenges faced by the agricultural sector: the need to improve the productivity and competitiveness of agriculture, boost its contribution to area-based development and rural well-being, enhance its capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate change and make better use of genetic and natural resources, and increase its contribution to food security.

The ministers of agriculture of the Americas also gave IICA two specific mandates: to promote innovation as a tool for triggering technological, institutional and social changes in the sector, and foster integrated water resources management.

To address these challenges and other issues - such as the strengthening of family agriculture, the recognition of the contribution made by women and generational change and the incorporation of more young people into the agricultural sector - we must redouble efforts, together with the countries, to tap all the opportunities, devise innovative solutions and achieve results of excellence that have a positive impact not only on agriculture but also on the millions of people who depend on it for their livelihood.

We are engaged in innovating the Institute’s technical cooperation model, to consolidate IICA as an organisation geared to the achievement of concrete and visible results, and facilitate the positive transformations that our member countries wish to achieve in the agricultural and rural sectors.

We are mindful of the fact that achieving these overarching objectives calls for coordinated action by countless numbers of actors working at the national, regional and hemispheric levels. Moreover, if the Institute wishes to achieve a positive impact, it must focus its efforts on the tasks that it is equipped to perform with excellence and for which it possesses proven capacity.

IICA will focus on making major contributions through four technical cooperation instruments: large-scale, integrating projects known as “flagship projects”; rapid response actions, which give the co-operation model flexibility; pre-investment initiatives, through the Technical Cooperation Fund; and externally funded projects linked to technical co-operation.

The flagship projects will aim to achieve the competitiveness and sustainability of agricultural chains for food security, inclusion in agriculture and rural territories, resilience and comprehensive risk management in agriculture, and the productivity and sustainability of family agriculture for food security and the rural economy.

Following the example of thousands of farmers who approach each new planting season with courage and hope, the Institute, under the banner of “A Single IICA,” is committed to achieving results in support of agricultural development and rural well-being in the hemisphere.

We look forward to reaping a speedy and bountiful harvest.

Victor Villalobos is Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture.