The FONTAGRO Seed Fund project represents a unique platform for promoting technological solutions and innovations in agriculture throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Its aim is to boost initiatives that address key challenges in agriculture, such as climate resilience, environmental sustainability, and productivity enhancement. The technological solutions developed under these funds provide spaces where farmers, researchers, and sector experts can collaborate, share knowledge, and access resources for the development of more efficient and sustainable agricultural practices.
The innovations stemming from FONTAGRO-funded projects cover a wide range of areas, from the use of biologicals for more ecological agriculture to the implementation of digital technologies for efficient water management and improvement of the agricultural value chain. These innovations have a positive impact on food security, rural welfare, and environmental conservation.
The budget allocated for the Seed Fund is used for workshops with leading experts in the topics to be addressed. The purpose is to understand the current situation in each participating country, enabling the development of a proposal based on FONTAGRO’s funding parameters. Additionally, the leveraging of additional funds is managed to complement project financing.
In this regard, last March, the workshop "Smarter Pastures for Greener Livestock" took place at the Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA) in Uruguay, with the participation of universities and scientific and technological institutions such as Queensland University of Technology, New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, Global Research Alliance, and INIA, with the support of FONTAGRO.
The aim of this meeting was to propose the design of a real-time data platform to demonstrate the results of regenerative agriculture sustainability. This practice offers a unique opportunity to address the needs of livestock producers in their environmental practices and achieve optimal farm emission reduction using consistent metrics.
The proposed platform is an international-level data system capable of recording production profiles, including emissions, biodiversity, water quality and quantity, animal welfare, food security, and traceability. This information can be used as an indicator of the sustainability of the livestock system, address consumer preferences, and support access requirements to retailers and markets.
Moreover, it will provide the necessary data source for purchasing companies to test, verify, and credibly report emission reductions in their supply chains, and help producers adopt best practices in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Colombia, Paraguay, and Panama.
This will enable the coordination of a global network of agricultural farms (existing and new), combining academic and industrial expertise to gather high-quality data and demonstrate livestock agriculture systems that meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
