Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) and CABI have gone a step further in their partnership with a meeting to identify each other’s priorities and capacities, align common objectives, and explore new collaboration opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The meeting took place earlier this month at the SAN facilities in San José, Costa Rica, and was attended by members of the SAN management team and a delegation of the CABI team in Latin America, led by the Director of the CABI center in the region, Yelitza Colmenarez. “Our common goal is to find synergies to strengthen collaboration areas that are already being leveraged at a global scale, and look for new collaboration opportunities in sustainable production,” she said.
“SAN is committed to boost regenerative agriculture by supporting producers, companies and all stakeholders in the value chain. With CABI we are particularly interested in activities related to biodiversity conservation and integrated pest management. Our experience in this area complements CABI’s expertise, so we would like to join forces and take advantage of these experiences to apply them in other countries with the support of the SAN network of members,” said José Joaquín Campos, Executive Director of SAN.
Established in 1910, CABI is an organization that helps farmers grow more and lose less of what they produce, combating threats to agriculture and the environment from pests and diseases, protecting natural habitats from invasive species, and improving access to scientific knowledge.
CABI is part of the SAN membership since December 2020. The partnership became a mutual affiliate membership in early 2021 as SAN joined the CABI network too. Since then, both organizations have already initiated joint activities and are currently working together in projects in Malaysia and India.
In Malaysia, CABI is part of an interdisciplinary consortium coordinated by SAN that aims to advance Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and biodiversity conservation practices at the farm level for palm oil producers. The project, which is funded by Ferrero, is being implemented with SAN member Wild Asia.
In India, SAN and CABI have jointly developed a proposal to design and implement improvements at farm-level in the context of the Nestlé Sustainable Sourcing Programme for Spices that SAN is currently coordinating in the country. SAN member ASK India is also working on its implementation.
Expanding the existing collaboration into Latin America and the Caribbean was one of the topics discussed during the meeting. “One of our priorities in Latin America is to reinforce food security, producing more, but in a more sustainable way. That’s why we are implementing programs like Plantwise, for example. It would be great to work with SAN and its members on this in Latin America, based on the synergies we have identified,” added Colmenarez.
Visit our website for information about SAN’s membership structure and current members.
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