SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — Guyanese agronomist Muhammad Ibrahim will take over as director general of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) this Thursday, January 15, with plans to further strengthen the leading role that the Americas play in the planet’s food security.

Ibrahim was elected in November by the ministers of agriculture of 32 countries in the Americas, and will be sworn in as Argentine Manuel Otero’s successor in a ceremony at IICA Headquarters in San José, Costa Rica.

Elected for the period 2026-2030, Ibrahim succeeds Otero, who served two consecutive terms as director general of IICA, the specialised agency for agricultural development and rural well-being, and implemented a comprehensive process of transformation after he took office in January 2018.

Those efforts put the promotion of science and technology at the centre of technical cooperation projects, which have benefited some 10 million farmers and rural stakeholders across the region in recent years.

The institution, the leading technical authority for agricultural and rural development in the Americas, also became a promoter of collective action by the countries, enabling governments and producer organisations to present common positions in the most important international forums, in defence of their interests and the role of agriculture as part of the solution to global challenges.

Ibrahim, who holds a PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences from Wageningen University, has pledged to work to strengthen agriculture in all the countries of the Americas by tapping the opportunities offered by the current context of research and new technologies.

To that end, he intends to further expand IICA’s efforts to promote investment aimed at transforming agrifood systems and improving the economic and financial viability of agricultural enterprises and in particular small farmers.