Given the daunting crisis scenario that has increased hunger and malnutrition in the region and around the world, it is the responsibility of the agriculture sector of the Americas to bring a common position to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27).
This was the consensus reached by senior officials and leaders at the opening session of a meeting of ministers, secretaries and high-level officials of Agriculture of the Americas in Costa Rica.
The meeting is aimed at discussing the strategic role of the region’s agriculture sector in addressing climate change.
St Vincent and the Grenadines mister of Agriculture Saboto Caesar said we have always gone to COPs individually, however, this is an opportunity we should not miss, working together as a region.
“We have always gone to COPs individually. I congratulate the Director General of IICA for the mobilization of the States to work together. We have a golden opportunity to seek consensus”.
Director General of IICA Manuel Otero highlighted the fact that the region of the Americas is the guarantor of the planet’s food and nutritional security, as well as of its environmental sustainability, given its production capacity and wealth of natural resources.
“There can be no environmental sustainability without first achieving food security for our people and we must respect the fact that it must take place in this order”, he said.
Professor Lal, Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center (CMASC) at The Ohio State University, considered that discussions at COP 27 should focus on how to produce more food with fewer resources. “We must capitalize on agriculture as a solution to food and nutritional security and as a means of mitigating climate change”, he remarked.
COP 27 will be held from 6 to 18 November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.