With the participation of ministers, deputy ministers and duly accredited representatives of the 8 countries that are part of SICA, the ordinary session of the Central American Agricultural Council, CAC was held in San José, Costa Rica, in order to review progress in the implementation of regional actions to strengthen the Agricultural Sector. Representing the Ministry was Dr. Victoriano Pascual.

The session was chaired by Vice Minister Darío Vargas of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Dominican Republic, current holding pro-tempore presidency of the CAC, and with participation of the Secretary General of SICA, Werner Vargas, the Deputy Director General and regional representative of FAO for Latin America, Mario Lubetkin, and the presence of the Director General of IICA, Manuel Otero.

Otero reiterated the support and accompaniment that IICA provides to the CAC to strengthen the sector “We believe in regional integration, this region is key to the future of the continent, that is why IICA will support SECAC and Central American regional policy,” declared.

Lucrecia Rodríguez, Executive Secretary of the CAC, explained that among the issues discussed at the meeting, she highlighted good practices in the use of biofertilizers, the availability of fertilizer inputs, and the viability of a regional program for joint negotiation for the purchase of fertilizers. In this space, Secretary General Vargas participated together with Pilar Alfredo Lagos from SE-COMISCA SICA and Olga del Pino, from the Spain-SICA Fund, presenting the regional experience in the mechanisms of negotiation and joint purchase of medicines and medical supplies. In this regard, the Council of Ministers agreed to request support from both instances to design a similar mechanism for joint purchases of fertilizers and agricultural inputs.

For his part, Julián Carrazón, Regional Agriculture Officer of the FAO Erick Quirós, regional coordinator and representative of IICA in El Salvador, gave the participants a summary of the advances in scalability and opportunities in the SICA region.

Likewise, a report was provided by the SECAC with the progress of the preparatory actions that the regional agricultural sector, together with the environment sector, are carrying out for the next COP27 conference to be held in Egypt in November 2022.

At the conclusion of the meeting, a cooperation agreement was signed between Catholic Relief Services and SECAC to strengthen technical cooperation between the two entities on issues of rural development, family farming, rural women and youth, and climate change.