Direct dialogue between Germany and Colombia on agricultural issues, key contributions in scientific research applied to the field and financial cooperation are the three major agreements reached by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Cecilia López Montaño, during her participation in the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture 2023 in Berlin.
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In high-level dialogues, organized by the Colombian ambassador to Germany, Yadir Salazar, Minister López Montaño explained that Colombia needs to make a productive transformation and increase its capacity to export agricultural products to generate foreign currency and be able to make the energy transition.
Likewise, before delegates from the European Union, the minister ratified Colombia’s commitment to comply with the new environmental standards to receive Colombian products and requested a reasonable period of time while the bio-inputs project is launched to guarantee cleaner production .
Under the leadership of the German Minister of Agriculture, Cem Özdemir, several actions were defined to support Colombia in its agricultural transformation process and compliance with the first chapter point of the Peace Agreement on comprehensive rural development.
With the German Society for International Cooperation, GIZ, he made an approach to seek cooperation for Agrarian Reform. “They were very successful in Greece, helping them to make a simplified cadastre in order to determine the value of rural land”highlighted López Montaño.
The minister emphasized that Colombia will buy the land for the Agrarian Reform with national resources, but it requires a very large support from the international community for rural development projects.
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A commitment was also reached with the teams of the Julius Kühn Research Center, with whom there will be meetings with the Colombian Corporation for Agricultural Research (Agrosavia) and the National Research Centers (Cenis) on issues such as the protection of bees and their ecosystems. “In general, it is to see how we establish an alliance of knowledge for the benefit of our rural families,” Minister López explained.
On the other hand, Minister Cecilia López held a meeting with delegates of the German Industrial Federation, which unites private companiesto whom he exposed the new export potential of Colombian agro-industry and proposed generating large-scale productive links.
German companies also showed their interest in supporting Colombia to have an effective traceability of cattle that allows reducing the commercial impediments of Colombian meat in the member states of the European Union.
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