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OAS Secretary General Calls on Governments of the Region to Invest More in Science, Technology and Agricultural Innovation

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.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-907/11