Agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean needs more and better investment, innovation and strong institutions. The region receives 20,5 per cent of total world investment in this sector.
JAMAICA, 28 October 2009: – We should turn our eyes towards a new rural sector in Latin America and the Caribbean. The neoliberal export model based on goods with no innovation and environmental sustainability should now be part of history, said ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena during her presentation in the Fifth Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture and Rural Life in the Americas inaugurated Wednesday in Jamaica.
– To improve rural life and ensure food security in the region, encouraging more and higher quality investment in agriculture, promoting research, development and agricultural innovation and improving agricultural institutions is fundamental, she added.
In relative terms, inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) in agricultural production are not substantial, representing only 0,47 per cent of total FDI to the region in 2007.
However, in global terms, Latin America is the second largest recipient of FDI in agriculture in the world (20,5 per cent of the total), after Asia and Oceania (51,3 per cent ).
Brazil is the third largest recipient in the world after China and Malaysia, while Peru, Chile, Honduras, Ecuador and Costa Rica figure among the top 20 recipient countries, according to the World Investment Report released recently by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
– It is urgent to encourage innovation in agriculture. As in any other sector, innovation is a necessary condition for generating new areas of competitiveness, stated Bárcena.
Investment in agricultural science and technology has grown very slowly in the region. In real terms, it increased only 0,67 per cent between 1991 and 2006, while agricultural value added grew at an annual rate of 3 per cent.
Referring to the role of the State, the Executive Secretary of ECLAC stressed the importance of developing novel inter-institutional, multi-sector and territorial schemes to address the complexities of the new rural life.
According to the report The Outlook for Agriculture and Rural Development in the Americas: A Perspective on Latin America and the Caribbean 2009, agriculture is generating an average of about 5 per cent of the regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with enormous disparities between countries. While in several Caribbean nations agriculture represented 1 per cent of GDP, in Paraguay it reached 21,2 per cent and in Guyana 30, 2 per cent.
This study, presented in the context of the ministerial meeting, was prepared jointly by ECLAC, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
The Executive Secretary of ECLAC called on countries in the region to include the issue of adaptation to climate change as part of their agricultural policy agendas.
– Public investment to increase the capacity of agriculture to adapt to climate change, carried out as part of a broad public policy strategy, is an absolute must for the agricultural and rural sectors of Latin America and the Caribbean, she said.
The autonomous measures that farmers can adopt to adapt to climate change, such as producing other crop species or varieties, using irrigation, bringing forward planting, among others, are very important. However, these adaptation efforts can have unwanted environmental consequences if they are not framed in comprehensive adaptation policies, which should be implemented in several sectors simultaneously, she warned.
