The year has begun with some good news about investment in agricultural research for Latin America and the Caribbean. Thanks to unprecedented international collaboration and support, the Regional Fund for Agricultural Technology (FONTAGRO, by its Spanish acronym) will be able to invest US$4 million in technological innovation in 2007, almost double the amount available last year for the Fund's annual competitive grants program.

The due date for preliminary proposals is March 30. Click here for details.

FONTAGRO finances research toward creating public goods that contribute to sustainable agricultural development. Since its inception in 1998, the Fund has provided $12 million in support of 47 projects, each lasting 3 years. Project partners have injected a further $22 million in counterpart funds.

"The Fund belongs to them," says FONTAGRO Executive Secretary Nicolás Mateo, referring to its 14 member countries represented on its Board of Directors.

Among other benefits, the Fund serves members as a platform for attracting additional investment, Mateo explains. "Far from displacing other funding mechanisms," he says, "it complements them."

Of the $4 million available in 2007, $2 million comes from the CGIAR; $1 million from FONTAGRO, generated by its endowment of nearly $36 million; and $0.5 million each from the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECI, by its Spanish acronym) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The IDB, which hosts the FONTAGRO Secretariat in Washington, DC, and the Inter-American Institute for Collaboration on Agriculture (IICA), with headquarters in Costa Rica, are the Fund's co-sponsors.

FONTAGRO both leverages research investments and offers a powerful mechanism for fostering collaboration. Mateo enjoys telling how the Fund has brought together diverse partners, from within and outside the region, around shared concerns: how Chilean and Dominican researchers joined forces in applying molecular markers to determine optimum harvest dates for avocado, and how the participation of a CGIAR-supported Center in a project on soil health in banana helped tap expertise from Australia and several European universities.

Such collaboration is central to FONTAGRO's work, whose projects must address challenges of regional importance, especially those that cross political boundaries, such as controlling diseases and managing natural resources in shared watersheds. Each project involves public or combined public-private groups from two or more member countries and at least one CGIAR Center. In recent years, the Fund has focused on projects designed to strengthen productivity and sustainability in agricultural value chains, with particular emphasis on small-scale producers.

As the number of projects has grown, each generating valuable knowledge for the region and the world, FONTAGRO has placed more emphasis on knowledge management. This involves documenting research results, capturing key insights from projects, and making useful information and knowledge widely available. The Fund performs these tasks through technical workshops and posting key materials on both its own website and the INFOTEC knowledge platform operated by IICA. Supporting the evaluation and dissemination of research results is one of IICA's key contributions as a FONTAGRO co-sponsor.

In a world of short-term thinking, FONTAGRO is guided by a long-term vision of continuous, stable funding for knowledge creation. This is vital for enabling Latin America and the Caribbean to build a more competitive and sustainable agriculture to benefit the poor.