by Dr Marcela Ramos – University of Glasgow
On 8th November 2019, a stakeholder engagement workshop was held at the Universidad Nacional Colombia in Bogotá. A series of presentations were delivered by project partners to Colombian stakeholders, including the sharing of phase 1 preliminary findings and phase 2 plans. The main topics discussed in the presentations included the role of remote sensing technologies for assessing forage production and quality, soil greenhouse gas emissions, farmer capabilities to implement new forage management strategies, barriers and opportunities to new technology uptake, and opportunities for forage conservation.
Colombian stakeholders provided valuable feedback on many aspects, including how to incorporate the Colombian conflict variable as part of the analysis of the social science data and design of the data collection. After presentations were delivered, two broad themes emerged as relevant for further research; 1) the importance of developing new network channels (to introduce/enhance the use of new technologies) and 2) to look for strategies to incorporate new generations in the development of sustainable food production in Colombia.
14 participants from MGS: Mesa de Ganadería Sostenible Colombia (The Colombian Roundtable for Sustainable Bovine Livestock), MADR: Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), GGGI: Global Green Growth Institute, RAPE: Región Administrativa y De Planeación Especial (Administrative and Special Planning Region), CATIE: Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (Tropical Agronomic Center for Research and Teaching), UNAL: Universidad Nacional (Sede Medellín) (National University, Medellín), WWF: World Wildlife Fund and the British Embassy in Bogota were in attendance, in addition to all CoForLife project partners.
CoForLife 