On June 21st, UPS-Quito held a talk on Family Farming and Innovations. This talk was promoted by the Inter American Institution of Cooperation for Agriculture (IICA, in Spanish). The aim of the talk was to hold talks that would broaden the characteristics of family farming in the country and identify actions that help strengthen it through new ideas from society that would help build public policies. 

There were keynote speeches given by IICA experts: Fatima Almada and Galileo Rivas; José Luis Yagüe from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM); Narcisa Requelme, professor and researcher at UPS and Rawia Derbel; all are students in the doctoral program Project Planning for Rural Development and Sustainable Development at UPM. They presented the preliminary results of their study "Innovations in Family Farming" in Ecuador particularly in the provinces of Pichincha and Esmeraldas. 

The aim of the study is to create an inventory of sustainable technology alternatives for family farming. The study is part of an agreement between IICA, UPM and the Agris Mundus program. The results are means that will help plan and make decisions regarding problems in the family farming production systems as well as share the results with other provinces and national programs.

Final results will be published by UPM and the memoirs by IICA. Representatives from the following institutions attended: INIAP, GADPE, HEIFER–Ecuador, MAGAP, FAO, CAFOLIS, COPISA, PROALIMENTOS, RFCAFC, MCPP, Foro de la Mujer and CESA