BRASILIA, Brazil — Newly elected Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Muhammad Ibrahim, says for the next five years he will work to prioritise the incorporation of science, technology and innovation to tackle the challenges that the countries and farmers will face.

Ibrahim, a Guyanese agronomist with 35 years of experience in international management, was elected for the 2026-2030 term, with an absolute majority of the votes of the ministers of agriculture of the Americas who are currently in Brasilia attending a meeting of the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA), IICA’s highest governing body.

He will assume office on January 15th of next year, succeeding Argentinian Manuel Otero in leading the hemispheric organisation.

“I am honoured and grateful to have been elected to lead this great international institution. I will be a director general for all regions—Northern, Southern, Andean, Central American and Caribbean—focusing on inclusion and diversity throughout the hemisphere,” said Ibrahim in his acceptance speech.

Ibrahim noted, “The world is currently facing numerous risks and great uncertainty. This has placed IICA at a crossroads. It must address numerous challenges and technical cooperation demands from its member countries in an environment in which resources are scarce.”

He singled out several issues, including fragmented and unstable agrifood systems, agricultural trade challenges, an increasing food demand, price hikes, declining average growth in productivity, environmental threats, vulnerability to outbreaks of pests and diseases and a fragile family farming sector that is the source of most of our food.

He maintained that, “IICA is well positioned to continue its work as a benchmark institution, collaborating with its partners and member states to tackle these challenges and to make agriculture the engine of prosperity for the countries of the Americas.”

The director general-elect will strive to strengthen IICA’s technical capacities in science, technology and innovation, as a means of expanding the use of modern and cutting-edge tools.

“We must intensify the work that IICA is doing to foster investments aimed at transforming agrifood systems and improving the economic and financial viability of agricultural enterprises and small farmers, in particular,” he stressed.

Ibrahim has experience in forging partnerships, mobilising financial resources working with decision-makers and establishing key contacts throughout the Americas.

He has an MSc in Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, with a focus on Animal Nutrition from the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica, where he later served as director general.

He also has a PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, with a specialisation in Livestock Production and Animal Nutrition from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, one of the most prestigious universities in the world of agricultural sciences.