La Plate-forme pour l'agriculture tropicale (TAP)

National Innovation Facilitators will strengthen Salvadoran Agriculture


10/03/2020 The group of National Innovation Facilitators (NIF) of El Salvador carried out its second training process for the development of functional capacities that will impact on the strengthening of the agricultural innovation system, particularly for four productive value chains of the country: coffee, bananas, beans and tomato.

 

This training was carried out as a follow-up to an initiative of the FAO and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), in which a network made up of institutions, representatives of the academy and producer organizations was formed and trained to discover and enhance their facilitation skills, aiming the economic development of their territories.

“Rural development has always been a priority for AICS, and particularly, the development of innovation in agriculture, especially considering the different climate change effects, since innovation is a way of dealing with the new problems that are being faced by producers. We do this by developing functional capacities for a network made up of different entities, including the "Enrique Álvarez Córdova" National Center for Agricultural and Forestry Technology (CENTA) and others from the government, the private sector and the academy, "explains Nury Furlan, from AICS.

The National Innovation Facilitators have been working in the last months in the elaboration of action plans to respond to the needs of the producer organizations that participate in this initiative, located in Candelaria de la Frontera, Ciudad Barrios and San Simón, for the coffee case; San Pedro Masahuat, in the case of bananas; Morazán, for tomato; and San Miguel, for beans.

Erika Zárate, consultant for the FAO Subregional Office for Mesoamerica, explained that the idea is to develop capacities based on the experience of producers, with the aim of improving their conditions for more sustained access to new markets with a special emphasis on inclusion of women in these negotiation and marketing processes.

Academic institutions can also contribute to reducing hunger and malnutrition

In the framework of the actions to strengthen the Agricultural Innovation System (AIS) in El Salvador,  FAO and AICS have started a coordinated work for the application of technical knowledge and critical thinking of academic institutions to develop skills and resources that respond to the main needs of the agricultural sector; therefore, a group of representatives of the academic sector are part of the network of National Innovation Facilitators (NIF).

For FAO, partnering with academic and research bodies can improve the capacity of institutions to eliminate hunger and malnutrition, as well as contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “Academic institutions produce a lot of knowledge and their research can contribute significantly to reducing hunger and malnutrition; for this reason, it is strategic to involve them in actions to support the government to face the challenges towards achieving food and nutritional security”, said Diego Recalde León, FAO Representative in El Salvador.

For the development of this initiative, which seeks to use agricultural innovation systems as a strategy to strengthen the functional capacities of Salvadoran agriculture, it is foreseen the participation of five higher education centers in different areas of the country: the Catholic University from El Salvador (UNICAES), in the department of Santa Ana; the Central American University "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA), in San Salvador; the University of El Salvador (UES), through the Experimental Station, in San Luis Talpa; the Universidad de Oriente (UNIVO) and the Universidad Gerardo Barrios (UGB), both from San Miguel.

In recent statements to the international media, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu urged the public and private sector to work together with academia and civil society to support the new FAO Hand in Hand initiative, which brings a new business model to end poverty and hunger together.

FAO actively collaborates with university education institutions to mobilize knowledge and innovation, strengthen capacities, provide scientific evidence solutions to public policy formulation processes and share their own experience from the field with the educational community.

Source: http://www.fao.org/elsalvador/noticias/detail-events/es/c/1265558/

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