In September, the 2021 National Call for innovation projects in agriculture was opened and is open to all Chilean producers and companies, with the perspective of promoting and financing initiatives for an amount close to 4 billion.

The objective of the initiative is to reward projects that are focused on the three strategic challenges addressed by the Foundation for Agrarian Innovation (FIA) of the Ministry of Agriculture of Chile (Minagri), and that aim at agriculture based on water efficiency and adaptation climate change, market development and innovative processes.

"Innovation is of utmost importance for the development of Chilean agriculture and key to increasing competitiveness in our sector, increasing productivity with less impact on natural resources and with low costs", declares the Minister of Agriculture, Antonio Walker.

Chile regional leader in innovation

According to a study prepared by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Chile leads the regional ranking in terms of innovation and obtained the best position in relation to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean in the Global Innovation Index 2020 .

From a global perspective, Chile ranked 54th out of 150 included in this edition, scoring below the average for high-income economies. The index indicates that Chile has better results in terms of innovation inputs (innovation inputs), rather than innovation products (innovation outputs).

Agriculture to debit

Different is the case with regard to agriculture, since according to the XI Innovation Survey prepared by the Ministry of Economy of Chile, the innovation rate of the agricultural sector is 13,8%, which places it in the place 9 of 14. This is due to the fact that companies face obstacles when innovating, which is why the FIA ​​redesigned the financial incentive service and its project instrument, seeking to cover the complete innovation development cycle by companies. companies in the sector.

Along these lines, the executive director of the FIA, Álvaro Eyzaguirre, maintains that the impact of climate change, the greater demands of the markets, and the increase in the population force the modernization of the agricultural sector.

“More today when agriculture is experiencing a moment of great prominence, playing a key role in two great challenges. On the one hand, agriculture must continue to function in times of pandemic to ensure the food supply chain and, on the other hand, with an eye to the coming years, it must increase the production of healthy food, but with less water resources and land cultivable ”, he comments.

Call for the public and the private

"This is where innovation is fundamental and from the FIA ​​we seek to play an active role to ensure that agriculture does not stop, so I call on all producers and agricultural companies in the country, and all those who believe that through their ideas and initiatives can respond to the problems we face today, ”says Eyzaguirre.

The contest closes its applications on October 6 and you can apply for two types of projects:

• Private property, it will support the development and adoption of product / service and / or process innovations that can be commercialized and / or implemented.
• Public good, it will promote the development and implementation of initiatives that make it possible to solve difficulties and problems of knowledge - such as access or generation of information - of coordination and linkage between actors, or regulation. These obstacles must be common and transversal for at least a subset of companies and / or producers in the sector.

Both modalities should contribute to the efficient solution of the strategic challenges posed by the Minagri Foundation for Agrarian Innovation.

The bases are available in www.fia.cl and applications must be submitted through summons.fia.cl until October 6 at 15:00 p.m.

Consultations can be made until September 28 at projects2020@fia.cl.