San Jose, Costa Rica – . The Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries of Jamaica, Christopher Tufton has reiterated his invitation to the countries of the hemisphere to participate in the most important meeting for agriculture and rural life in the Americas.

He also underscored the importance of the participation of the private sector in this important meeting which will be held in Jamaica from October 25 to 31 under the theme “Building Capacity for Enhancing Food Security and Rural Life in the Americas,” a release from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) stated.

As the host of the Week of Agriculture and Rural Life of the Americas, Minister Tufton, via videoconference, spoke to the delegations of 21 countries in Costa Rica to attend the Twenty-ninth Regular Meeting of the Executive Committee, a governing body of IICA.

During the Week, two important meetings will be convene, the Fifth Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture and Rural Life in the context of the Summit of the Americas process, and the 15th Regular Meeting of the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA).

The former is the highest level political forum for the ministers of agriculture of the hemisphere, and the latter is the highest governing body of the Institute.

“We have made satisfactory progress in our preparations for the Week of Agriculture, which will be an opportunity to address important issues such as the challenge posed by food security in our countries and other parts of the world,” he said.

In emphasizing the importance of the participation of the private sector in this important meeting, the Jamaican minister said it aims to bring agribusiness operators together with representatives of the public sector and to develop partnerships to attract investment in the sector.

“The lack of investment in agriculture makes it difficult to address strategic issues such as food security,” he added.

Alluding to the theme of the meeting, he noted that Jamaica will be the scenario for promoting the implementation of the agreements reached by the Heads of State and Government who participated in the Fifth Summit of the Americas, held in Trinidad and Tobago in April 2009.

According to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture of Jamaica, Donovan Stanberry, who headed his country’s delegation to the meeting of the Executive Committee, “The Week of Agriculture will be an opportunity to introduce the active participation of the private sector” into the ministerial dialogues.

“We will only be able to progress and strengthen capabilities in agriculture or in areas such as food security if the private sector becomes fully involved and invests more,” said Stanberry.

During the October meeting in Jamaica, Stanberry will lead the work of the Group for the Implementation and Coordination of the Agreements on Agriculture and Rural Life of the Summits process (GRICA).

Food Security
Commenting on the remarks of Minister Tufton, IICA’s Director General, Chelston W.D. Brathwaite, noted “Because we understand the challenge involved in ensuring that there will be food on the table of all human beings, food security will be a priority topic for discussion during the Week of Agriculture.”

He also called attention to the importance of incorporating small-scale producers into markets, and to the need to promote family agriculture, which is key to food production, in our countries.

Food security is a top priority for the Institute, which, long before the crisis caused by the rise in food prices in 2008, was already concerned with the issue and had made it one of the pillars of its mission/vision, according to the Director of Technical Leadership and Knowledge Management, James French.

For French, who spoke to the Executive Committee on the Institute’s strategy for technical cooperation in the area of food security, it is necessary to concentrate efforts on small and medium scale producers, who account for much of the food produced in the hemisphere.

“We will provide the Member States of IICA with technical cooperation in the area of food security policies, as support for the development and strengthening of an institutional framework that will favor technological change and the inclusion of producers – small and medium scale agricultural and rural entrepreneurs, including those engaged in family agriculture – in markets,” he said.