Trilateral cooperation will share information on Climate

Mexico, the United States and Canada agreed to form a working group called Water, Soil and Climate Change, which will share information of interest to the primary sector of the three countries, in particular, what is related to technology generation models in the context of the climate change.

Thus, there will be an exchange of experiences, databases and analytical tools, through the trilateral network of federal agencies for agricultural, agri-food and food system research, reported the National Institute for Forestry, Agricultural and Livestock Research (INIFAP).

The representative of the Institute before the Cooperative Research and Technology Program for the Northern Region, Ignacio Sánchez Cohen, highlighted the opportunity to interact between researchers from the three countries to propose multinational and multi-objective projects.

He indicated that the objective is for researchers from the three countries to come into contact to work on specific issues and thus transform scientific data into useful information for society.

One of the most recurrent themes, he said, is knowing how climate change impacts water and soil resources, since it is reducing the quality of the liquid and has had an impact on consumption for different uses: domestic, animal and agriculture.

Hence, he added, it is a very good platform to raise research issues with objectives of common interest to the three countries in the context of climate change.

Sánchez Cohen explained that a very clear example is that Mexico, from the northwestern part and the United States in the southwestern region, share a large area of ​​land that starts from Arizona to the center of the Mexican Republic, including the states of New Mexico, Sonora and Chihuahua.

This is a region that presents the same problems of soil degradation, water quality, indiscriminate use of resources, overgrazing and deforestation, therefore what one country develops in terms of science and technology automatically serves the other, with the appropriate adjustments. relevant, he stressed.

What the platform seeks is to find ways to optimize the use of natural resources. This effort is seen as a good way to establish projects of common interest and shared goals, he noted.

The INIFAP researcher also gave as an example that Canada has a lot of interest in forests and at the Institute this is one of the main lines of research.

In addition to the rational exploitation of this natural resource, another topic is that of fires, for which paleoclimatic databases are elaborated to know the history of the climate through the trees and to foresee possible scenarios, that is, as a platform for prevention. and planning.

He highlighted that there is a more severe climate at the extremes, strong floods and droughts due to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that alter climatic factors.

He pointed out that another serious issue is that of temperatures. For example, the minimums present a flagrant increase, which reduces the climatic threshold of the areas where most of the crops are grown.

These variations have impacted production, he said, since crops are obtained that advance their flowering stage, reduce yields and modify their biochemical processes.

Against this background, the productive potential of cultivated species is expected to migrate to more temperate regions, Sánchez Cohen noted.

Established in 1998, the Cooperative Research and Technology Program for the Northern Region (Procinorte) is a trilateral network of federal agencies for agricultural, agri-food, and food system research in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

Its objective is to promote cooperation in research and technology in the North Region of the Americas through exchanges and alliances for competitive and sustainable agricultural development through the incorporation of science, technology, innovation and the exchange of knowledge in areas of trilateral relevance.

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