Agri-strategies for climate change: What do the experts say?
The headquarters of the Ministry of Agribusiness, Argentina, was the scene of the 'Workshop of analysis and perspective of the process of construction of the Adaptation Plan to climate change for the agricultural sector in Argentina', organised jointly with the Institute Inter-American Cooperation for Agriculture (IICA).The Secretary for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Guillermo Bernaudo, led the workshop with the secretary of climate change of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, Carlos Gentile, and the representative in charge of IICA in Argentina, Federico Ganduglia.
In this framework, Bernaudo stressed the importance of incorporating the issues associated with climate change into the development of public policies, and the need to revalue existing actions and identify new actions. He added: "Agriculture in general terms is essentially adaptation to the climate – the management of production through adapting technology and practices is the basic component and, from that vision, to be able to adapt to change is a great challenge".
The meeting had wide participation from different areas of the portfolio of Agribusiness and organisms, such as the Direction of Sustainable Productions, the National Institute of Seeds (INASE), the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA); the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO); the Center for Sea and Atmospheric Research (CIMA) / CONICET-UBA, and representatives of the Ministries of Environment and Sustainable Development (MAyDS) and of Foreign Affairs and Worship, which favoured a multidisciplinary approach.
The activities of the workshop were coordinated by two IICA facilitators specialised in the subject, Daniela Medina, from the headquarters, and Kelly Witcowski from the office in the United States. They coordinated a dynamic that included presentations and participatory group work in order to achieve a common understanding of the inputs needed to build a strategy.
Edith Obschatko, IICA Policy Specialist and co-organiser of the initiative, together with the Ministry, stressed that the institutional objective aims to permeate the debate among the various areas of the agri-food public sector that have an interest in the problem in order to be able to give a Sectoral response to the threats of climate change.
As reported by Ministerio de Agroindustria