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Last Updated: Dec 29, 2011 - 2:18:31 AM |
The
Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José
Miguel Insulza, participated in San Jose alongside the President of
Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, in the inaugural event
of the Meeting of Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas 2011, in
which he asserted that the region “must invest more in science,
technology, and agricultural innovation, and must do so beginning now,”
since “we are living the beginnings of a new agricultural
revolution.”
In the framework of the event organized by the Government of Costa Rica
and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA),
held October 19 to 21, Secretary General Insulza said new technologies
are “reinventing what humanity understands
by agriculture and how this is practiced, generating a new potential
for creating wealth, new business opportunities and new products.”
“The agriculture of the Americas demands more and better innovation:
technological, institutional, organizational and market innovation,”
emphasized the head of the OAS. “The dynamic development of information
and communication technologies, as well as biotechnology,
is the principal base for the new agricultural revolution and one of
the most powerful sources of the unleashing and deepening of the
processes of sector transformation and innovation.”
In this context, the Secretary General recalled the low levels of
investment in research and development of agriculture in the region,
which on average in 2006 reached 1.14 percent of the Gross Domestic
Agricultural Product, as well as the “scarce participation
by Latin America in the global food markets with greater levels of
sophistication and aggregate value.”
“The production of foodstuffs in the required quantity and quality does
not solely depend on the availability of natural resources, but rather
more and more on knowledge, technology, business capability, the
quality of public policies, and the strength and
sustainability of the national systems of innovation,” he said.
In this task, he continued, IICA “can contribute significantly to
support the innovative, inclusive and sustainable development of
agriculture in the Americas,” and he recalled the Sixth Summit of the
Americas to be held on April 14 and 15, 2012, in Cartagena
de Indias, Colombia, with the theme “Connecting the Americas, Partners
for Prosperity.” “We hope that out of this meeting will come
contributions to enlighten us with respect to how to take advantage of
the networks of infrastructure, transport but also knowledge
to bring the Americas closer. Without a doubt, we trust that IICA will
play an important role in this process,” he concluded.
The IICA is a specialized body on agriculture of the Inter-American
System headed by the OAS with objectives that include providing support
to the countries of the region in the sustainable development of
agriculture, seeking the food security of the hemisphere,
and achieving prosperity in the rural communities of the Americas.
For more information, please visit the OAS Website at
www.oas.org
.
© Copyright 2011 by thebahamasweekly.com
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