For 3 days, more than 25 researchers from 21 countries of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain gathered to present advances and results in agrifood research.
The XVIII Workshop on Annual Project Monitoring was held this week in Madrid, Spain, in tandem with the celebration of the 25th anniversary of FONTAGRO: the organization that promotes science, development, and innovation in agriculture and food for Latin America and the Caribbean.
This region is one of the main sources of food production, formed by family farming, a sector that faces relevant challenges mainly caused by climate change effects, among which the global increase in temperature stands out, generating the appearance of new pests and diseases, which cause great losses to producers, putting food security at risk.
Among the numerous topics that were addressed in the 3 conference days of the Workshop, the panels were as follows:
PANEL 1. Together for Greater Resilience to Climate Change, focusing on topics such as sustainable intensification of livestock farming systems with legumes, bovine productivity in the South American Chaco region, towards more productive and sustainable rice for Latin America, strengthening capacities for the prevention and management of Fusarium wilt of Musaceae in LAC, opportunities for carbon sequestration in LAC soils, and nanofertilizers in soil and nitrous oxide emissions.
PANEL 2. New Discoveries, Technologies, and Innovation, with expositions on improving the yield of potatoes and other Andean tubers, Agtech for climate-smart dairy, gene editing for improving plant and animal species, reducing Bioprocess of Rhizospheric Cadmium solubility, higher Agricultural Production with lower nitrous oxide emission, and regional alliances for the dissemination of iron-rich beans in LAC countries.
PANEL 3. Supporting Producers to Manage 4.0, Sustainable and Agroecological Agriculture, with presentations on sustainable control of the Huanglongbing vector (HLB) in family Farming (FF) in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia; innovation for pasture and forage reserves management; water management platform in 2030 agriculture; agroecological model for avian coccidiosis and multipurpose silvopastoral systems and family farming.
Moreover, at the close of this Knowledge Week, it was announced the winner Project of the Excellence Award, which belongs to Agrosavia: Colombian Corporation for Agricultural Research.
With the participation of Colombia, Peru, and the Dominican Republic, and with Martha Marina Bolaños Benavides as project leader, the project obtained the best assessment: “20% of the evaluation comes from the board of directors that voted yesterday, and the remaining 10% comes from the administrative technical secretariat, from the entire secretariat team” detailed Dr. Eugenia Saini.
As part of Fontagro’s 25th anniversary, the panels were as follows:
Panel 1. What we learned from international cooperation in agriculture and how to transform that knowledge into good practices for a more effective impact; Panel 2. FONTAGRO: origin and current relevance of FONTAGRO in support of science, technology, and innovation for LAC and global networks; Panel 3: “25 years of FONTAGRO, extending borders towards Europe and the world.” In addition to the lectures and special guests such as Luis Telo da Gama – Ignacio Romagosa (CYTED, Spain), Juan Francisco Delgado Morales (INTEC, Spain), and the Presentation of Red REMEDIA.
In Arnulfo Gutiérrez’s words, President of FONTAGRO: “the challenges Latin American agriculture face are immense. Our farmers are getting old, young people do not want to stay in the countryside. I think these tools we are looking at here now can somehow attract those young people who are very involved in technology. And this can even make agriculture more attractive for them.”
At the end of this last day, Eugenia Saini, Executive Secretary of FONTAGRO emphasized that “the countries from Latin America and the Caribbean, and Spain, but also from the European Union, the United States, Canada are the ones with whom FONTAGRO seeks cooperation and collaboration.”
“It is the key moment for scientists to network and try to find and innovate those solutions that are needed for the transformation of agrifood systems. And when we talk about the transformation of agrifood systems, what we really mean is that we have to produce the same or more quantity of food with more quality, but also with more efficiency, with less impact on the environment, and these challenges cannot be faced on their own,” she noted.
For his part, Carlos Parera, National Director of the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) Argentina and Vice President of FONTAGRO stressed that “FONTAGRO is a very important cooperation tool in which INTA participates and supports. We are constantly trying to partner with colleagues from other regions of Latin America to obtain the best technology, to achieve the best impact of technology on the producer, which is what really matters to us, and in this sense FONTAGRO has been a very useful tool to support and finance high-impact projects not only in Argentina but also transferable to other Latin American regions.”
In this regard, Manuel Otero, IICA General Director pointed out “Today there are more than enough reasons to be proud of by having formed a financing mechanism for agricultural innovation of its member countries” and added: “the countries have appropriated this mechanism, and FONTAGRO gives clear signals of which the priorities are in terms of science, technology, and innovation.”
Formed by: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Spain, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela, FONTAGRO is a unique mechanism worldwide for the strategic and sustainable co-financing of agricultural R+D+i in Latin America and the Caribbean.
It was created with the mission of transforming agrifood systems, through knowledge, to make them more inclusive and sustainable with the environment and society; since its creation and hand in hand with strategic partners, they have developed 193 regional platforms, mobilized USD 137.8 million, worked in 27 countries, contributed with the participation of 467 public and private institutions—including national research institutes, universities, companies, NGOs, and regional and international organizations.
***
About FONTAGRO
FONTAGRO was created 1998 with the purpose of promoting the increase of the competitiveness of the agri-food sector, ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources and the reduction of poverty in the region. The objective of FONTAGRO is to establish itself as a sustainable financing mechanism for the development of agricultural technology and innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean and Spain, and to establish a forum for the discussion of priority topics of technological innovation. The member countries are: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Spain, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. In the last 21 years 167 regional agricultural innovation platforms have been co-financed for an amount of US $ 124 million, which has reached 452 institutions and 33 countries worldwide.