With food security having become one of the most important issues on the international public agenda, in New York this week the director general of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Manuel Otero, is taking part in high-level discussions on sustainable agriculture and climate action, parallel to the sessions of the United Nations General Assembly.

The city is also hosting Climate Week, one of the year’s most important events on climate change mitigation and adaptation, with more than 600 activities scheduled in different locations across the US’s financial capital.

Climate Week attracts policymakers, business leaders and civil society representatives of all ages and from across the globe, who discuss ways of speeding up the transformations already taking place in global economies, and is organised by the international non-profit organisation Climate Group, in conjunction with the UN General Assembly and the city government.

Joint activity with Columbia University

The IICA and Columbia Climate School will be holding an event, entitled ‘Creating a new narrative for agriculture in Latin America. Resource-efficient agri-food systems for the health of people and the planet’ in New York.

The event at The Forum at Columbia University will bring together researchers, political leaders, directors of international organisations, and internationally renowned representatives of the private sector and civil society.

The participants will discuss ways of building a new narrative that places the importance of Latin American agriculture front and centre.

The speakers will include the Guyana President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, and Otero, along with Izabella Teixeira, former Minister of Environment of Brazil and special advisor to IICA for the G20 and COPs 29 and 30, and Jeffrey Shaman, interim dean of Columbia Climate School.

The Climate School is a multidisciplinary faculty dedicated to climate crisis research, whose mission is to create knowledge to contribute to the expertise and training of leaders to work on fair and equitable solutions to the challenges of sustainability.

Otero will also take part in a side event to the UN General Assembly on ‘Climate Action through Sustainable Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems’. The organisers are the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, hosts of COPs 28 and 29 respectively, Italy’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, the FAO, and the World Bank. The event will take place at the United Arab Emirates’ Permanent Mission to the United Nations.

The IICA director general will also be a speaker at an event organised by the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) on food security and the relationship between climate, soil degradation and biodiversity, within the framework of Climate Week.

Otero will speak about the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) programme, which this year contributed to the launch of a technical cooperation programme aimed at strengthening food security and the day-to-day work of small farmers in Guatemala. At the event, Otero will introduce the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment at the US State Department José W Fernández.

Additionally, Otero will present an award to American climatologist Cynthia Rosenzweig, who will be unveiled as IICA Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development.

In 2022, Rosenzweig, an agronomist and farmer with more than 40 years of professional experience, was awarded the World Food Prize for her outstanding contributions to global food production and availability. The respected scientist also advocates for the participation and permanent positioning of the agri-food sector in climate and environmental negotiation forums.

Otero will also participate in a meeting on food systems of the managing board of the World Economic Forum, and an activity of the LEAF Coalition, which is dedicated to financing efforts to combat deforestation, on fundraising for the protection of Amazonia, the world’s largest tropical forest.