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The scale of the impact of climate change on the production and trade of agricultural goods requires responsible and urgent action. We also face a context characterized by drastic changes in globalization and skepticism towards multilateralism, and in which environmental problems may become a new generation of barriers to trade.
Therefore, the seriousness of the situation requires precise answers and a decisive and intelligent articulation to counteract unilateral measures that may create new obstacles for our agricultural producers, especially the smallest ones.
The Americas account for 31% of global food exports. This makes it the guarantee of global food security. To the strength of their production models we must add the enormous endowment of natural resources that we must preserve.
This wealth bears the responsibility of being the guardian of global environmental sustainability: 16% of the world's arable land, 50% of its biodiversity, 23% of its forest areas and 30% of its fresh water are located in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Given the significance of these data, it is necessary to positively present the successful experiences and diverse efforts of our countries towards sustainable, productive and inclusive agriculture with a strong interrelationship with science, technology and innovation, all essential prerequisites for combating climate change. We contribute to sustainable development, bring prosperity to our rural areas and effectively combat poverty.
With all these marks, at the recent COP28, the environmental summit that ended in the United Arab Emirates, agriculture in America demonstrated its irreplaceable role in strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, while contributing to development and efforts to eliminate hunger.
This is a roadmap that will include as new milestones COP29 and COP30 – the latter is the climate summit of the Amazon and Latin America and the Caribbean, scheduled to take place in Brazil – and that requires new multilateral agreements that reflect the changes already implemented strengthen private sector and the establishment of long-term public policies.
Meanwhile, in Dubai, the Emirati city where the meeting organized by the United Nations took place, ministers and senior officials of agriculture from the American countries, large, small and medium-sized producers, executives of the agri-food industry and experts from academia met sector have made their voices heard. with the aim of influencing decisions about the future of production and consumption methods and so that the agricultural sector is never excluded from these discussions again.
There is a consensus that we must celebrate and put into action: the need to end the age of fossil fuels and embark on a path that leads us to the massive use of renewable energy to enter the era of circular economy and bioeconomy. .
At more than 60 conferences at the House of Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas, the pavilion built by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), together with its 34 member states and private sector allies, at Expo City in Dubai Agricultural producers on the continent demonstrated their progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while demonstrating that the sector is the only one that can sequester carbon through regenerative agricultural practices, which include maintaining soil health, good water management and care for the Biodiversity.
We also achieved the goal of having official COP documents recognize that America's agricultural and food systems are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It also showed a strong commitment to climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts and that we are moving forward based on the efforts of producers and the contribution of research and new technologies to produce more food with less use of natural resources. In conclusion, the continent's agricultural and food systems have not failed as some claim, although they can of course be improved.
More than 15 Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries of Agriculture were present on this stage, demonstrating that America's agricultural sector is ready to make substantial contributions to decarbonization and deepen its carbon sequestration capacity.
Ministers stressed that countries in the Americas must become world leaders in innovation in agricultural and food production, promoting the sector's role as part of the solution to climate change.
At the same time, they warned that it is important to ensure more flexible and faster access to climate finance so that the sector can make an even greater contribution to solving the environmental crisis.
As Rattan Lal, 2020 World Food Prize winner, IICA Goodwill Ambassador and the highest authority in soil science, also explained, agriculture can aim not only to be carbon neutral, but also to be gas negative . Greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to global efforts to curb global warming.
Thus, the agricultural sector demonstrated cohesion in defending common interests and commitment to the global climate change mitigation and adaptation agenda. And it made clear to the world that it plays a strategic role in food security and environmental sustainability given the size and diversity of its natural resources.
Manuel Otero is Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA)