AMIDST growing challenges in agriculture, Barbados’ Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition Security, Indar Weir, has said that Guyana’s Muhammad Ibrahim has the vision and leadership necessary to lead the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and strengthen the response to those challenges.
Weir affirmed that the region plays a key role in global food and environmental security, but cautioned that IICA’s technical co-operation is irreplaceable in strengthening the protection of natural resources and promoting access to new technologies, an area in which many countries in the region need assistance.

“Cooperation is essential to continue our path of improvement; for some of our countries, it is the only way out. We are very fortunate to be able to look to the future together with IICA. Next November, we will elect a new Director General for the 2026-30 term, and I want to express my deep conviction that my colleague, Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim of Guyana, is the person with the kind of vision and leadership that will be needed in this new and challenging era,” Weir wrote in an article published in The Barbados Daily Nation, the Caribbean nation’s leading newspaper.
Ibrahim is a scientist with more than 30 years of management experience in the international agricultural and rural development sectors, who has been nominated for the position of Director General of IICA by Guyanese President Irfaan Ali.

The other candidates to lead the hemispheric organisation are Fernando Mattos of Uruguay and Laura Suazo of Guyana. The selection will be made by the region’s ministers during the sessions of the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA), which will take place from November 3 to 5 in Brasilia.
Weir noted in his article that the countries that make up the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)—14 countries that are also members of IICA—have already publicly supported Ibrahim due to the technical and leadership skills the candidate has demonstrated throughout his career. Ibrahim is the only one of the three candidates to have received unanimous support from the countries in his region.
In this regard, the Barbadian minister considered that now “it is necessary to work with the rest of the region to reach a unanimous decision, with the entire American continent, including its island nations, working together to strengthen their capacity to produce food, boost trade, and generate employment and development opportunities.”
“It is the time of agriculture; it is the time of the Caribbean,” is the title of Weir’s article, which outlined what, in his opinion, are the main needs of the sector in the region: “We must improve production and efficiency, forest and soil conservation, animal and plant pest and disease control, scientific and technical research and extension, the improvement and sustainability of the livestock industry, and other aspects of long-term agricultural growth as a basis for improving rural life and the contributions of agriculture to the economic and social development of our countries and our peoples.”
In this regard, Weir maintained that, since its creation more than 80 years ago, IICA has carried out fundamental technical co-operation work in the countries. Furthermore, in recent years, the organisation has played a leading role in building consensus on strategic issues related to agriculture that are discussed in international forums.
Ibrahim, Weir concluded, has the right credentials to further IICA’s work in support of agricultural development and rural well-being on the continent: “His scientific and technical training, demonstrated by more than 30 years of work in agricultural and rural development throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, clearly supports this perception.”