Argentina and IICA Join Forces to Boost Panamanian Corn Production
Corn production in Panama is concentrated in the provinces of Los Santos, Herrera, and Chiriquí.
Panama, through the Ministry of Agricultural Development (Mida), held a technical meeting with the Argentine ambassador to Panama, Sandra Pitta, and Miguel Arvelo, Panama’s representative of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), to create the first steps to draw up a roadmap to boost corn production over the next two years. The meeting was attended by the Argentine ambassador to Panama, Sandra Pitta, and Miguel Arvelo, Panama’s representative of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
According to Mida, the main objective of this project is to carry out an initial assessment of the conditions, characteristics, limitations and opportunities of corn production in the Azuero region, in the province of Los Santos, in order to prepare a formal proposal for the actions, methodologies and topics to be developed. The Minister of Agricultural Development, Roberto Linares, emphasized that this regional cooperation will help strengthen corn production in Panama. He added that the agricultural sector is very important to the National Government, and this project will provide small and medium-sized producers with new alternatives to boost their production sustainably.
Ambassador Pitta said that “a cooperation mechanism for corn production is already being initiated, through Argentine technicians with extensive experience in this area, to begin developing a general diagnostic chain that will improve Panamanian production, in partnership with IICA.” Arvelo, from IICA, mentioned that it was up to this organization to arrange for Argentine support, which has extensive experience in the corn sector. He added that they are bringing in technicians and producers from Argentina with extensive experience in this production to implement them.
