With the horrific situation in the Middle East adding to the list of shocks to the global economy, the latest reports suggest that the number of people in the world suffering from severe food insecurity increased by more than 200 million between 2019 and 2021.

Against this backdrop, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) organised a meeting in Costa Rica of more than 30 ministers of agriculture from countries in the Americas to consolidate a continent-wide partnership for food security and sustainable development aimed at seizing opportunities, mitigating threats, reducing risks, and offering solutions.

The vision underpinning the partnership is that the Americas, as the world’s largest food producer and exporter, have a key role to play in overcoming the obstacles created by the current situation and providing the responses that the planet requires. The agriculture sector aims to make an even bigger contribution by taking the technological leap made possible by science and innovation to the next level and stands ready to continue feeding the region and the world in harmony with nature.

These two basic commitments sum up the consensus reached in Costa Rica between diverse and heterogeneous countries, some with growing concerns about their levels of food insecurity and others with enormous exportable surpluses that play a crucial role in ensuring that the world has safe, nutritious, and healthy food.

Discussion forums were held with the participation of the presidents of Guyana, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, and Panama, Laurentino Cortizo; rural leaders from Chile, Guyana, and Honduras; the 2020 World Food Prize laureate, Rattan Lal; the winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, Michael Kremer; and the Minister for Climate Change and Environment of the United Arab Emirates, Mariam Almheiri. The ministers approved a number of resolutions reflecting the consensus on the urgency and nature of the challenges facing agriculture that call for action based on four principles:

1) Agrifood systems need to be improved, but are not failed systems;

2) Due to its economic importance and its capacity to mitigate climate change, agriculture is part of the solution to the current challenges;

3) Science and technology must guide the transformations;

4) Farmers are key players, as no one else can manage natural and productive resources more sustainably.

In another important decision, the ministers who took part in the conference, speaking on behalf of the governments of the countries of the Americas, asked IICA to lend its support to collective action and the adoption of common positions in the face of the environmental crisis and to help the agriculture sector secure climate financing.

One area that IICA has prioritised in recent years is the promotion of analysis and debate on the need to establish a synergistic relationship between agriculture and climate change, a task that culminated at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), held in Egypt, with the installation, for the first time, of a pavilion called the Home of Sustainable Agriculture of the Americas.

With support from the countries and private sector partners, the pavilion will also be installed at COP28 in Dubai, creating a privileged setting for officials and producers to show the progress being made towards greater sustainability through the promotion of regenerative agriculture, applying the One Health approach, that includes soils, by a region that is key to food security and environmental conservation.

Despite agriculture’s marginal role in the emission of greenhouse gases, we emphasise that it must never again be left out of the climate negotiations, the ministers stressed.

There is a strong consensus in the region regarding the importance of acting in a coordinated manner to reduce the levels of food insecurity, while at the same time tackling the climate crisis.

The bioeconomy, therefore, emerges as a bridge between production and the environment, creating opportunities to transform our continent’s biomass into new value chains and change the profile of our agriculture. Traditionally viewed as a supplier of raw materials, it is now becoming a highly diversified agroindustrial complex.

The meeting of ministers thus constituted a powerful call to action to move beyond analysis to continue transforming agriculture, which, as a key element in sustainable development, must become increasingly inclusive, competitive, and resilient.