The Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate) Summit, which took place in Washington D.C, gathered together more than 800 participants from the public and private sector, with the aim of increasing investments in climate-smart agriculture and innovation for agrifood systems. AIM for Climate, supported by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, FFAR, was opened by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, and by the United Arab Emirates Minister of Climate Change and Environment, Mariam Almheiri.
The commitment of AIM for Climate and government partners to accelerate investments and research in climate-smart agriculture is of utmost importance to protect the global food system from climate change. However, to date, most climate change policies, investments, and interventions do not adequately integrate gender and some risk exacerbating gender inequalities.
FONTAGRO as a science, technology, and innovation supporting trust fund that finances climate-smart agriculture solutions in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain, with a portfolio of almost 200 research and innovation hubs in agriculture, presented a group of 18 initiatives that produce solutions for adaptation and mitigation to climate change effect. Specifically, these initiatives seek to increase productivity and efficiency, while reducing greenhouse gas emission and increasing soil organic carbon sequestration. In short, the transformation to a carbon-neutral and environmentally friendly agriculture is sought.
FONTAGRO’s initiatives are considered “innovation sprints” and they form networks of scientists, technicians, products, and other participants who, working hand in hand, seek to produce new knowledge which allow facing the challenges that climate change brings to the Latin American and Caribbean region and to the rest of the world. All those new developments are essential opportunities to develop new technologies and innovations, such as public goods, which can be scaled locally in the future.
With an overall investment of $15.5 million, and for approximately 4 years, FONTAGRO’S innovation sprints seek to bring thousands of farmers from the region closer to solutions that allow them to improve productivity with a lower environmental impact. This will require the support from multilateral financing organizations which can finance a greater level of technology adoption, and thus contribute to the improvement on competitiveness and food security, with equity.
More than 500 organizations from all over the world work with FONTAGRO to co-finance the development of new knowledge, technology, and innovation for the transformation of the planet agriculture and food with a lower impact on the environment.
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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.