Commodities Shuttle: Africa and the Americas discuss food security

In a period of an unbalanced world market, high inflation and pressured agricultural input costs, countries from the Americas and Africa come together to discuss threats to food security.

The two continents face common challenges and, with improvements and advances in the transformation of their agro-industrial systems, they will play a major role in solving current problems.
The exchange of experiences in this sector is fundamental between countries in the South-South region.

To this end, IICA (Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture), Auda-Nepad (African Union Development Agency and New Alliance for African Development) and Agra (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) will bring together ministers of Agriculture, Science and Environment from various countries to discuss the role of Africa and the Americas in challenges related to food production and environmental issues.

For Manuel Otero, Director General of IICA, “in this challenging context, America and Africa are the two key continents to guarantee food security and environmental sustainability at a global level, due to the abundant natural resources, biodiversity and opportunities that come from agriculture. tropical.” According to him, responding to these challenges also requires the presence of governments.

For Agnes Kalibata, president of Agra, Africa and America should share ideas on nutrition, people’s health and the need to improve food quality and increase production.

The experience and progress achieved by Brazil in food production will be important in these discussions, mainly due to the domain of tropical agriculture, driven by Embrapa’s research.

This search for solutions comes at a time when food security is deteriorating in many countries, with the prospect of continued deterioration, according to IICA.

The meeting will seek to build resilient, sustainable agricultural systems that can increase productivity, the inclusion of producers and the sustainability of agrifood systems.

Among the main topics proposed for discussion during the event will be science, technology, innovation and digital agriculture, indispensable for the advancement of productivity, the insertion of the producer more and more in the sector and the resilience of the productive system.

The participation of governments, with public policies and institutional innovations, will also be topics of discussion, according to the organizers.

Agricultural development also depends on advances in discussions on climate change and the recovery of degraded natural resources.

The countries gathered at this summit should also discuss and propose solutions to promote fairer and more transparent international food trade.

The event, which will take place at IICA’s headquarters in Costa Rica, from the 27th to the 29th of this month, will bring together, in addition to governments, representatives of international organizations and the private sector.

prices The IPPA (agricultural producer price index) was stable in the first half of this year, compared to the same previous period, according to Cepea.

Fall In the grain sector, due to price reductions in corn and soybeans, the index had a real drop of 3%. In livestock, the decline was 5.3%, but the coffee and sugarcane index rose 27.7%.

Cane The crushed volume from April to June totals 188 million tons, according to Andy Duff, from Rabobank. In the period, 42.6% of the cane was destined for the production of sugar.

Sugar Production dropped to 9.7 million tons in this 2022/23 crop, down from 12.3 million in the same previous period.

Ethanol The mills, which had produced 9.7 billion liters from April to June in the previous crop, put 9 billion in this one. Of this volume, 5.8 billion were hydrated ethanol. The production of ethanol from corn adds up to 1 billion.

more falls News of a normal crop in the United States caused another drop in agricultural products in Chicago. This Wednesday (20), soybeans fell 2%; and corn, 1%.