A meeting was held between Agricultural Research Center and Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture

A meeting was held between the management of Agricultural Research Center (ARC) and a group of employees of Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). Rashad Huseynov - Director of the Center, Namig Shalbuzov - Deputy Director, Joaquin Arias - Coordinator of the Observatory of Public Policies for Agrifood Systems (OPSAa) of IICA digital platform, Specialist in Economics - Evgenia Salazar, IICA external and Institutional Relations Director -  Beverly Best and Margaret Ziegler - IICA representative to the United States attended the online meeting.

Director of the Agricultural Research Center, Rashad Huseynov greeted the participants of the meeting and gave brief information about the state support provided to the agricultural sector in Azerbaijan. He said that agricultural producers in the country are exempt from all taxes except land taxes. On the other hand, agricultural producers receive subsidies, benefit from agrarian loans, agrarian insurance system with a mechanism of state support, tax and customs concessions.

Noting that the OPSAa has done quite a lot of work in the field of research, has extensive experience in the field of agriculture and public policy, the director noted the possibility of mutually beneficial relations between the two organizations in the future, was interested in whether the OPSAa has experience in research, analysis, mapping political frameworks and developing policy tools outside the American continent.

Then, OPSAa coordinator Joaquin Arias informed about the activities of the organization he represents. He said that OPSAa is a platform that provides mutual relations, exchange of knowledge, experience and information in the field of agriculture and agri-food systems, public policy in the American continent. OPSAa has extensive experience in building networks, systematization of public policy, analysis tools for dialogue and networking, data bases and data processing, creation of online platforms, thematic policy areas, mapping of political frameworks and government spending, development of maps for summarizing actual data, H. Arias stressed that they are currently cooperating with a number of countries for food security and sustainable development.

The OPSAa coordinator then made a presentation reflecting the activities of the Observatory.

Then Deputy director of ARC, Namig Shalbuzov made a speech at the meeting. He drew attention to the fact that the OPSAa acts as a platform where various parties meet and jointly develop policy documents, emphasizing that it is commendable and the importance of benefiting from this experience.

Margaret Ziegler, Representative of IICA in the United States, said that a large team, which she will represent, will take part in the The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Azerbaijan in November this year. Within the framework of the session, IICA plans to hold a number of meetings on sustainable agriculture and agri-food systems in Baku.

Then Beverly Best, director of external and institutional relations at IICA, took the floor and shared her thoughts on potential cooperation. At the end of his speech, she proposed signing the Memorandum of Understanding between ATM and IICA on COP29 days to formalize cooperation.

At the end of the meeting, Rashad Huseynov also took advantage of the opportunity to participate in COP29 and noted the importance of holding a meeting of representatives of both organizations. He proposed to meet in Azerbaijan and discuss issues of expansion of relations, coordination, interaction and cooperation.