IICA PRESENTS RESULTS TO MINISTERS AND STRENGTHENS ALLIANCES WITH ITS PARTNERS IN THE CARIBBEAN

Georgetown, October 14- At a meeting in which representatives of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) presented the results of their organization’s work in the Caribbean, the region’s ministers of agriculture outlined the main issues with which they required technical assistance. They include the need to reduce high food import bills by producing more products domestically, to strengthen agriculture by means of better public policies, and to enhance the expertise of technical officers.

Led by the Institute’s Director General, Víctor M. Villalobos, the IICA delegation also met with the President of Guyana, Donald Ramotar, who requested cooperation to modernize agricultural education in his country, to enable the sector to take better advantage of the water and soils available and adapt successfully to climate change.

IICA’s representatives delivered a report to the ministers summarizing the results of the organization’s cooperation projects during the period 2012-2013, which were designed to improve food security in the Caribbean, the competitiveness of agriculture at the national and regional levels, and the living conditions of the rural population. The report is available here.

The ministers’ input will be used to establish the objectives of the Institute’s 2014-2018 Medium-term Plan and, especially, to match the IICA country strategies for cooperation with the priorities of each nation, Villalobos said.

He added that his organization was endeavoring to ensure that its work had real impact on the ground, as the ministers had requested.

The Minister of Agriculture of Antigua and Barbuda, Hilson Baptiste, observed that one of the challenges facing the region was the need to improve the quality of its food, an issue that was closely related to the health of the population.

The Minister of Guyana, Leslie Ramsammy, agreed with him, adding that strong government endorsement was required to make improved food quality an objective of both the ministries of agriculture and the ministries of health.

Mathew Walter, Minister of Agriculture of Dominica, suggested that modernizing the policies of the public agricultural sector would make it possible to organize it better, while his Jamaican counterpart, Roger Clarke, said that improving the transportation of agricultural products within the region was a matter of urgency, to reduce the Caribbean’s dependence on imports from other parts of the world.

Clarke noted that Jamaica spent four times more on agricultural imports than the amount it earned with its agricultural exports.

The meeting involving IICA and the ministers of agriculture was held at the offices of the Caribbean Community Secretariat (CARICOM), in Guyana. The Institute is supporting the Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA), which is now taking place in the country and scheduled to conclude on October 12.

IICA has been the CWA’s chief promoter since the event was held for the first time in 1999. Minister Clarke acknowledged the Institute’s efforts, thanks to which the activity has become the most important annual event related to agriculture in the Caribbean.

Villalobos informed the ministers that a training program for technical officers from the Caribbean would be getting under way in 2014. Funded by the Government of Mexico, the three-month courses would be held in that country, in English. In a novel development, the Mexican trainers would also visit the Caribbean nations to provide follow-up and confirm that the expertise shared was being applied.

The Director General added that the next step would be to identify the priority areas in which government officers required training.

Work with strategic partners

At the headquarters of CARICOM, the IICA Director General expressed interest in promoting more regular meetings of the Caribbean ministers in order to address specific agricultural issues. Decision-makers would also have the opportunity to learn first hand about the results achieved by the agricultural cooperation projects implemented at the national and regional levels.

CARICOM Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque said the Community would support the coordination and consolidation of this plan.

IICA’s officials also met with the European Union’s Ambassador and Head of Delegation in Guyana, Robert Kopecky, to discuss operational aspects of the agreements signed by the two institutions this year to strengthen the regulatory framework of agriculture in the Caribbean (Agriculture Policy Programme - APP), and to develop and modernize the sanitary and phytosanitary measures implemented in the sector (SPS Programme).

Mr. Kopecky observed that the European Union had chosen IICA as the implementing agency of the programs (which will cost EUR 20 million, or nearly USD 27 million) because of its results-based approach. He highlighted the fact that the EU had sought a partner capable of making the objectives of the project a reality, and IICA had sufficient experience to do that.

The Ambassador of Mexico in Guyana, Francisco Olguín, and the Deputy Head of Mission, María-Elena Alcaraz, also met with the IICA delegation and agreed to provide follow-up to the Institute’s cooperation projects, in particular the training program for Caribbean technical officers that their country’s government will be financing.

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