The Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA) met in Greater Georgetown, Guyana, to discuss possible areas of cooperation in the field of agriculture.
9 September 2011: Irwin LaRocque, Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and Victor Villalobos, Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA), recently discussed options for collaboration, including ongoing projects such as the “Women and Youth in Agriculture.”
During their meeting at the CARICOM headquarters in Greater Georgetown, Guyana, LaRocque highlighted the significance of the visit in the light of the importance of agriculture for rural development and food security for the region. He emphasized IICA’s role in the implementation of two projects funded by the EU due to start early in 2012, namely an Intra-ACP Agriculture Policy Programme and a Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Programme .
He also noted that IICA is involved with the Jagdeo Initiative, which has identified binding constraints to the development of agriculture in the CARICOM region, and referred to a workshop that IICA coordinated with the Ministry of Agriculture in Antigua and Barbuda to address insurance in agriculture.
Finally, the IICA Director General invited the CARICOM Secretary-General to the annual meeting of the Ministers of Agriculture of IICA member States, to be held in Costa Rica in October 2011. [CARICOM Press Release]