IDB-GHI report cites Latin American-Caribbean advantages, needs
May 13, 2014 | 03:51 PM
A report jointly released by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Global Harvest Initiative, a group of private sector companies, has documented the agricultural advantages of Latin America and the Caribbean and the challenges they face in further development and modernization.
Latin America has a lot of potential to attract investment and produce more food as the world population expands, the report says.
Here are some of the highlights:
Latin America has a lot of potential to attract investment and produce more food as the world population expands, the report says.
Here are some of the highlights:
The advantages
- One third of the world’s fresh water.
- One quarter of the world’s medium to high potential farmland.
- Farmers with extensive experience and the capacity to innovate
- Relatively strong institutions and markets.
- A foundation of exports from Brazil and Argentina to build on.
- A global leader in no-till farming, particularly in Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina.
- Uruguay as a leader in traceability for animal agriculture.
- Untapped market potential in native varieties of potatoes in Peru and other Andean countries.
- Chile as a model fruit exporter.
The challenges
- A quarter of the region’s rural people living on less than $2 per day, with a “strong concentration” of landless farmers, indigenous peoples, women and children earning only $1.25 per day.
- 53 percent of the rural population — about 53 million people — undernourished.
- Dependence on food imports in the Caribbean and Mexico
- Agriculture responsible for most deforestation.
- Central American countries, in a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, vulnerable to hurricanes and climate change.
- About 54 percent of government expenditures on farms for direct and credit subsidies, with only 45 percent on public goods such as technology transfer, research and public roads.
- Public agricultural research and extension below that of developed countries.
- Poor quality of rural transportation and other infrastructure.
- Only 15 percent of land equipped for irrigation.
- Providing modernization assistance for smallholder farming that accounts for 80 percent of farms, 35 percent of farmland and 64 percent of agricultural employment.
- Poor land title records in some countries.
- Weak intellectual property protection.
- Topography and affordable labor that discourage mechanization.
- Lack of available repairs and maintenance for equipment.
- High import taxes on foreign products.
- Sanitary and phytosanitary trade barriers.
- High interest rates for farm loans.
- Lack of cooperatives to help farmers and work with agribusiness.
- High post-harvest losses in some countries.