The Inter-American Development Bank and the Regional Fund for Agricultural Technology today extended through Dec. 31, 2005, the agreement in which the IDB will continue administering the Fund that finances, on competitive basis, agricultural research and technology development projects that target regional strategic problems and opportunities of relevance throughout the Americas.
Known as FONTAGRO, the Fund is a consortium of countries and organizations, which was established in 1998, with income generated from an endowment that is expected to reach US$200 million by 2005. Current investments are around US$30 million, and there are 25 projects under execution in Central America, the Andean Region and the Southern Cone of South America.
The majority of the members are countries, but FONTAGRO’s stakeholders also include several other sponsors, such as the IDB itself; the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA); the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC); and the Rockefeller Foundation.