The Reason IR-4 chose IICA
IR-4 has a long-standing relationship with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). IIICA has an outstanding reputation for implementing projects with established agreements involving agriculture research in many of the Latin American countries, since 1944. In August of 2013, IICA and the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) signed a Project Grant to implement the Project “Latin America: Strengthening regional capacity to meet pesticides export requirements based on international standards.” For this project, IR-4 was a key partner to assist with training and coordination of work. This initial work helped to establish viable research centers in Latin America (LATAM). This project with IICA, STDF, and IR-4 concluded with the successful completion of several LATAM projects (Pyriproxyfen on pineapple and Banana as well as Spinetoram on avocado). IICA is uniquely qualified to assist The Minor Use, Foundation, Inc. in many international projects in the LATAM region. IICA has offices and people stationed in cooperating countries where the Minor Use Foundation needs to perform cooperative research with pesticide residues. It has the ability to facilitate knowledge transfer as well as resources transfers. We believe that there is a much higher chance of success in completing research if we are is engaged with organizations such as IICA vs. the development of individual agreements with multiple entities.
In 2015, IR-4 was awarded with a FAS grant “The Global Minor Use Fund (GMUF)” to advance cooperative pesticide residue work. Resources were provided to IR-4 to assist in the expansions of the IR-4 Project’s multifaceted efforts in helping U.S. fruits, vegetables, herbs and other edible specialty crops farmers gain enhanced access to international markets by removing trade barriers associated with pesticide use. The activities under the GMUF complements and integrates the work of IR-4 by providing it with an “international arm” for international coordination and collaboration. The GMUF is essentially an extension of the successful work completed by IR-4 and takes it to the global level. This FAS support is intended to add functionality to the GMUF, enabling it to provide data exchange/sharing, consolidating and prioritizing global pesticide needs, serving as a coordinator of joint residue studies, providing capacity/training to foreign partners (government institutions similar to IR-4) and seeking contributions of additional resources from foreign governments and the private sector. Under this proposal, the IR-4 Project coordinates field and laboratory research with cooperating international partners to develop data required to support establishment of harmonized global maximum residue level standards on products needed to address Global Needs identified at Global Minor Use Workshop.
One of the outcomes of this work was the formation and incorporation of the Minor Use Foundation, Inc. to provide the functionality to the Global Minor Use Fund and enable data exchange/sharing, consolidating and setting global priorities, coordinating studies, providing capacity/training to partners, and soliciting support from Foreign Governments and the private sector.
On-going work with IICA
There are a number of projects that were identified at the first and second Global Minor Use Workshops that have now evolved into residue studies and are ready for initiation. With IICA’s existing agreements with the countries scheduled to do this work, and their expertise in use of the Spanish language they have been identified as an ideal partner. IICA will be in the best position to implement and administer this work.
The projects identified include:
- Spinetoram on banana, papaya and pineapple to control fruit fly and some lepidopterous insects.
- Trifloxystrobin+ Fluopyram on papaya to control Anthracnose.
- Oxathiapiprolin on cacao bean (coco) to control pod rot.
The Countries contributing to this work include:
Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama and Peru
The Minor Use Foundation, Inc. which was formed by IR-4 will now take over the coordination of the Global Minor Use Summit and the Global Minor Use Prioritization and looks forward to continuing the work with IICA.