La Fundacion para la Innovacion Agraria

This summer I will be working with La Fundacion para la Innovacion Agraria (FIA), or in English, The Foundation for the Innovation of Agriculture. This is an organization that provides Chilean farmers with climate-smart agriculture technology to mitigate climate change and stimulate development in rural communities.  My role over the course of eight weeks will be to propose a new line of tools for potential development in Chile.

Specifically, this work includes understanding the current instruments and tools used in Chile financed by FIA and other organisations, such as the Chilean Ministry of Environment and Agriculture. Of particular emphasis is finding tools that will work specifically for Chilean farmers and the Chilean cultural context. This, in combination with understanding what tools are being used elsewhere, will serve as a foundation for this new proposal.

Currently, I am in St. George’s, Grenada at the Blue Growth Conference, hosted by the Government of Grenada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This conference serves to give me a better understanding of what kinds of tools are being used in the realm of climate smart technology and systems, for the comparative part of my work for FIA. This is a great opportunity to kick off my internship with FIA, meeting with and learning from the leaders in this space. Of particular interest have been the GIS and debt-for-nature conversion tools, which are relatively newer and something I will explore further over the summer.