Global financial sector faces triple challenge in financing food systems

Food safety, employment and environmentally responsible production are the three main global challenges facing food systems. Entities that provide financial services emerge after the covid-19 pandemic as an indispensable part of the solution to serve them.

To address these challenges, leaders and representatives from 27 countries around the world focused on granting agricultural and rural creditanalyze, discuss and share this week, mechanisms and experiences at the Seventh World Congress on Agricultural Development and Rural Finance, organized at the facilities of Trusts Established in Relation to Agriculture, FIRAin coordination with the Latin American Association of Financial Institutions for Development(ALIDE)

The inaugural declaration of the congress was made by the head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Mexico, Victor Villalobos Arambula.

For his part, Carlos Linares, President of ALIDE, highlighted in his inaugural message that “this congress takes place in a very complex environment for the world economy and particularly for the agricultural and rural sector, which is why it is necessary to consolidate a resilient agriculture that protects small, low-scale producers in developing countries where hunger and poverty are concentrated.

During his welcome message to the attendees, the Director General of FIRA, Jesus Alan Elizondo Florespointed out that, “upon awakening from the pandemic, the primary challenge that the global environment imposes on financial institutions is to provide food security to a growing population that by 2022 will reach 8,000 million people.”

In this sense, he stressed that “the opportunity for Mexico to receive a group of specialized agricultural and rural financing institutions from 27 countries is a unique opportunity to pause, review and improve the products and processes to support the Mexican countryside.”