IESC’s Newest Project Will Promote Trade Facilitation, Food Safety, and Climate-Smart Agriculture in the Northern Triangle
September 21, 2022
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded IESC new funding in the Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—to address the root causes of migration through a holistic approach to horticulture and trade. The five-year, $30.8 million Horticulture Uplifting and Energizing Resiliency through Trade (La Huerta) Project will facilitate local, regional, and international trade and build resilience to address climate change to reduce the economic insecurity and inequality that drive migration.
In the three countries, IESC will engage the public sector to: simplify, modernize, and harmonize processes for trade in horticultural products in keeping with the World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO TFA); support implementation of science- and risk-based sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, standards, and regulations; and improve efficiency, coordination, and transparency of trade-related SPS/food safety processes. The project aims to facilitate a 20 percent reduction in the time and cost of trade.
IESC will also partner with the private sector to strengthen climate smart agriculture, engage communities through inclusive business models, and improve on- and off-farm income sustainability in strategically selected horticultural value chains with U.S. and regional market linkages. We will leverage growth in targeted sectors to create opportunities for the populations most likely to migrate, including youth, women, minorities, and indigenous communities.
IESC will implement the relevant actions identified in the U.S. Government’s Root Causes Strategy for addressing economic insecurity and inequality in the context of food and agriculture by leveraging horticulture sector growth as a catalyst for change. IESC will work closely with the public sector to improve the enabling environment, and directly connect the populations most likely to migrate with meaningful income-generation and employment in the horticulture sector.
La Huerta is funded through the USDA Food for Progress Program. IESC will implement the project in partnership with Purdue University, the World Food Logistics Organization (WFLO), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), Asociación Guatemalteca de Exportadores (AGEXPORT), Fundación Hondureña de Investigación Agrícola (FHIA), and Corporación Exportadores de El Salvador (COEXPORT).
