Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture Establishes Latin American Bioeconomy Network

Last month, I was fortunate to have been invited to participate as a speaker and attend IICA’s conference and workshop on the Latin American Bioeconomy Network, which was held May 12-15 in San Jose, Costa Rica. I was invited to speak about Canada’s bioeconomy strategy, which is based on support for biotechnology, biofuels, and bioproducts. Well over 150 people attended the conference and workshop, representing virtually all of the 35 American countries. The objectives of the event were:

1. Explore and discuss the outlook of key factors that will shape the future of the bioeconomy in the region and globally (technologies, markets, financing, incentives, etc.), and understand how to make the most of them.
2. Analyze progress, challenges, and opportunities in the bioeconomies of the Americas and other regions, and identify potential synergies and partnerships.
3. Review the pending agenda for each of the bioeconomy pillars in the Americas and, together with strategic partners, develop new work plans for 2025.

The first day included a wide variety of presentations regarding bioeconomies from a host of perspectives. High level, global perspectives were provided by speakers representing the G20 Group of countries, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bioeconomy Association, and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). One common theme that existed through all of the presentation sessions on the first day was the vital importance of public-private partnerships for the success of bioeconomy development. This message was expressed by speakers from Europe, international agencies, and most of the American country speakers. Clearly, the global experiences in the development of bioeconomies has found that success lies in the integration of efforts from governments, universities, and private sector actors all working towards the same objectives and outcomes.

The second and third days were workshop oriented, with bioeconomy challenges and opportunities discussed on Day 2 and strategic network planning on Day 3. The Day 2 thematic workshops focused on public strategies and policies, financing, sustainability, innovation, youth engagement, assessment metrics, and international integration. Day 3 strategic planning activities were targeted towards collaboratively developing a joint work agenda for 2025–2026, based on the progress made by the Network’s working groups and the priorities identified during the plenaries and workshops on Day 1.

The Latin American Bioeconomy Network was launched in 2023, with participants having worked over the past two years to work with member governments regarding the development of bioeconomy policies. Over the past few years, the FAO has been increasingly involved in working with countries to develop sustainable bioeconomy policies and practices. Many Latin American and Caribbean countries have significant fiscal resource demands, such as education, health care, food security, etc., resulting in fewer resources being available to be devoted to the development of bioeconomy policies and supports.

Given the resource constraints faced by many countries, it’s important the bioeconomy policies required to support the growth and development of sustainable bioeconomies are grounded in evidence. To date, the strong evidence from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the USA, and several other countries on the substantial sustainability benefits of agricultural biotechnology become the foundation of government policy development. Many countries across the Americas have adopted genetically modified (GM) crops of one variety or another and their farmers and consumers are now reaping these benefits. This evidence of benefits needs to serve as the cornerstone of bioeconomy strategies for Latin American countries. By integrating agricultural biotechnology into their bioeconomy frameworks, countries can be confident of improving environmental sustainability, which has been amply demonstrated by GM crop adopting countries.