Eighth Wallace Scientific Conference Culminates: the beginning of a roadmap to food systems transformation

On Friday, June 2, participants of the VIII edition of the Wallace Scientific Conference: Transforming Food Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, gather in front of the Wallace Building.

Written by: Dannia Gamboa Solís

For three days, the headquarters of CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center), in Turrialba, Costa Rica, received 170 participants from around the world, more than 40 oral presentations and 77 research posters to address, analyze, and promote strategies to transform food systems in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The conference began its first day with the presentation of two of its central themes: Impacts of land and water degradation in the face of climate change; and strategies and innovation pathways for climate adaptation and mitigation actions, in which key actions were discussed, such as the implementation of production systems with good agricultural practices that have a positive impact on ecosystem services; prioritization of prevention strategies, as well as the reduction of emissions in diets and value chains.

The closing ceremony on May 31 included the presentation of the results of Agroforesta, considered the first research platform on agro-forestry, the result of a joint work between CATIE and CIRAD for more than 30 years, which has increased the competitiveness and sustainability of agro-forestry systems with perennial crops in Mesoamerica.

For the second day, governance for the transformation of food systems; and sustainable patterns of food production and consumption, both sessions highlighted the need to encourage democratic debate among all actors in the agri-food industry to support the transition of consumption within planetary boundaries, as well as to create and finance spaces, facilities and experiences that motivate change in behavioral patterns, while stimulating the transition to healthier diets.

As part of equitable access to food and empowerment of women, as well as young people and historically vulnerable populations, the thematic session was held: improving equitable access to nutritious food, where the need to exchange scientific knowledge and local knowledge as a transversal axis towards an agri-food transformation that addresses the representativeness of the different communities towards food sovereignty was highlighted.

Finally, the Water Harvesting project was presented, which supports the construction of infrastructure to capture rainwater through artificial ponds, springs and roofs, which is then used for productive purposes. The initiative is implemented by CATIE, in collaboration with the Nicaraguan Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA, its Spanish acronym) and financed by the Swiss Cooperation in Central America (COSUDE), in 10 municipalities of Nicaragua, enabling farming families in the dry zone to improve their resilience and thus better cope with climate variability.

The third and final day concluded with the session on financing, investment and agribusiness to promote adoption and scaling up, in which the priority areas discussed were: increasing support for enterprises in rural areas; facilitating access to the distribution of funds; strengthening production systems while strengthening financial systems; and integrating social, environmental and economic aspects to ensure food production.

"I would like to applaud and thank all the speakers, all the moderators, the sponsors and the participants for being here and providing us with your information as well as your knowledge. We look forward to continuing to talk and cooperate with you. We have a lot of information to digest, so we have to put it in different formats to take it to the different cooperations, decision makers and leaders," said Muhammad Ibrahim, CATIE's Director General.

During the coming weeks the conference hosts will be working on a roadmap to guide the collective action and, in this way, expose the main results obtained during the eighth edition of the Wallace Scientific Conference, as well as the publication of some of the papers that were held during the last days. To access all the details after the conference, we invite you to visit CATIE’s official website: wallace.catie.ac.cr.