6 July 2012: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the Government of Brazil have initiated a technical cooperation project to strengthen agro-environmental policies in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

The project was launched at a signing ceremony held on 20 June 2012, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) with the participation of FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva and Brazil’s Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira.

The project, with a budget of US$300,000 provided by the Brazil-FAO International Cooperation Fund, aims to document, systematize and validate successful ecologically-based agricultural policies and practices from Brazil and other LAC countries, and to promote the exchange of lessons learned and dialogue about plans, programmes and policies that can be adapted and implemented by LAC countries.

Graziano stressed the importance of such South-South cooperation initiatives, and said the agro-environmental project was the first step in implementing policies advocated by FAO at Rio+20. Marco Farani, Director of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), which implements most of the projects already covered by the Cooperation Fund, emphasized that the agro-environmental policy project is just one of several initiatives in which Brazilian Ministries are transferring resources to the FAO for projects involving the diffusion of Brazilian experiences and know-how. He also mentioned a second joint FAO-Brazil initiative announced at Rio+20 involving strengthening civil society, with a budget of US$1.5 million.

The project will be coordinated on the Brazilian side by the Environment Ministry’s (MMA) Department of Extraction and Sustainable Rural Development (SEDR). [FAO Press Release (in Spanish)] [Environment Ministry Press Note (in Portuguese)]