At the headquarters of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in the city of Rome, the Secretary of Development Planning and Federal Competitiveness of the Ministry of Economy, Jorge Neme, together with the Governor of Catamarca, Raúl Jalil, and the National deputy, Silvana Ginocchio, met with their authorities, the Executive Vice President, Donal Brown, the director of Latin America, Rossana Polastri, and the representative of Argentina, Diego Ruíz, to analyze IFAD projects in Argentina and their implementation that aim to strengthen small-scale agriculture, inclusive rural development and modernization of value chains.
At the same time, IFAD authorities anticipated that they are in a position to finance new projects for Argentina for an amount of US$20 million. IFAD is an agency that depends on the United Nations dedicated to financially assisting agricultural programs.
Neme specified that In the work meeting, “the investment projects for rural populations that we are executing in the Argentine provinces with financing from the International Fund for Agricultural Development were evaluated; whose objective is to strengthen family farming, inclusive rural development and modernize the value chains of production systems”.
Likewise, the Secretary of the Ministry of Economy of the Nation, indicated that “Argentina is committed to the values of IFAD, we are excited to be able to cooperate with this prestigious multilateral organization to transform rural communities from the economic and social point of view.”
Neme summed up that the financing is “to strengthen rural populations affected by climate change; strengthen the food and nutritional security of producers; move forward with investment in infrastructure and fight for gender equality and social inclusion of rural workersis the challenge”.
The programs managed by the Secretariat for Development Planning and Federal Competitiveness with FIDA financing are: PROCANOR, PRODECCA and PROSAF. All three have as beneficiaries the producers of peasant and indigenous family farming. The programs aim to improve the production and marketing conditions of rural families.
PRODECCA is oriented to work in the goat chain in the provinces of: Jujuy, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Catamarca, Córdoba, La Pampa, Río Negro, Chubut, Neuquén, Chaco and Mendoza; PROCANOR with the emerging and dynamic value chains of northern Argentina (camelids, llama, quinoa, chia in the NOA, and horticulture in the NEA). While PROSAF works with agroecological production.
“The meeting with IFAD officials was very positive, the importance for the province of Catamarca of the development of programs that modernize and strengthen the goat and sheep production sector was analyzed in detail, the management was also valued positively of the programs and new financing possibilities were opened”detailed Jorge Neme.
