Raise productivity, essential for building more resilient agrifood systems in Latin America and the Caribbean
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- 3 days ago
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Raise productivity, essential for building more resilient agrifood systems in Latin America and the Caribbean
A report by Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean warns that increasing agricultural productivity is crucial for building a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable agricultural sector, and represents an indispensable condition for ensuring well-being, food security and the future of agrifood systems in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
–Ministers of Agriculture from the region and senior representatives of ECLAC, FAO, IICA and CAF participated in the launch of the report Outlook for Agriculture and Rural Development in the Americas: A Perspective on Latin America and the Caribbean 2025–2026, which states that agriculture can strengthen its contribution to agrifood systems through productivity improvements driven by adequate financing and policy, institutional, financial and technological innovations.
The new report, jointly prepared by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, was presented during a virtual event attended by José Antonio López Leonardo, Vice Minister of Rural Economic Development of Guatemala, as well as Muhammad Ibrahim; José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs; Rene Orellana Halkyer; and Maximiliano Alonso, along with other authorities and specialists from the regional agricultural sector.
During the event, Vice Minister López highlighted the adoption of Guatemala’s Agricultural Sector Policy 2026–2032, aimed at sustainably and equitably strengthening rural development, emphasizing coordination among different sector institutions and actions to improve access to productive resources, strengthen agricultural health systems and support decision-making through agroclimatic roundtables. “Its objective is to increase, in an equitable and sustainable manner, the sector’s contribution to national economic development by expanding productive and food opportunities for rural families,” he stated.
“We must raise productivity as a central objective of policy both for economic growth and for greater social mobility and equity. Technological, scientific and institutional innovations are public goods that require sustained public investment and equitable access policies. Increasing the productivity of family farming simultaneously improves food security, rural employment and equity,” said Muhammad Ibrahim.
“Agriculture can become a decisive engine for overcoming the low-growth trap affecting Latin America and the Caribbean, closely linked to stagnant productivity. But this will not happen automatically: it requires explicit and deliberate productive development policies, with investment, capacities, innovation, financing and market access. Productivity does not occur in a vacuum: it is built in territories, through governance, public-private coordination and local capacities. That is both the challenge and the great opportunity to transform the region’s agrifood systems,” said José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
“At FAO, we are working to accelerate the productive transformation of the agrifood sector through technologies such as precision agriculture, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other solutions adapted to local realities, as well as by closing gaps in strategic infrastructure. To achieve this, it is necessary to strengthen coordination between commercial banks, development banks and multilateral organizations in order to expand access to adequate and innovative financial instruments for producers. In this regard, FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Initiative has mobilized USD 1.75 billion in the region to accelerate agricultural and rural development in the most underserved territories,” said Rene Orellana Halkyer.
“Increasing productivity is essential for building more resilient agrifood systems in Latin America and the Caribbean. To achieve this, we need a comprehensive approach that combines technological innovation, adequate financing, coordinated public policies and a strong commitment to social equity. Without productivity there is no sustainability, and without sustainability there will be no lasting productivity,” said Maximiliano Alonso.
A strategic priority for the region
The study warns that increasing agricultural productivity is now a strategic priority for the region because it determines not only the ability to produce more affordable food at lower cost, but also the capacity to respond to growing demand for healthy, nutritious, safe and sustainably produced food, while ensuring food security, rural employment, increased producer incomes and the resilience of agrifood systems to environmental and economic shocks.
It emphasizes that although Latin America and the Caribbean has demonstrated strong productive capacity for decades in several areas, progress has been uneven and the region now faces a triple challenge: producing more, doing so sustainably and ensuring social inclusion.
The publication highlights that over the last decade, total factor productivity (TFP) in the region increased by only 5 percent, equivalent to 0.9 percent annually, driven by technological advances such as the development and adoption of improved seeds, biotechnology, mechanization, precision agriculture, new irrigation systems and more
sustainable production practices. At the same time, it notes that nearly 75 percent of production growth came from greater use of inputs and only 25 percent from efficiency improvements, reflecting increasing dependence on fertilizers and agrochemicals.
The report identifies six major bottlenecks behind stagnant agricultural productivity: structural heterogeneity, technological gaps, weak governance, territorial and digital inequalities, human talent limitations and financing constraints.
In this regard, the document states that around 16 million small farms — more than 80 percent of the regional total — face severe limitations in access to land, technology, financing and markets; only 15 percent of small producers have access to formal credit; and only 39 percent of rural households have internet access.
It also states that increasing agricultural productivity is essential to reducing the cost of a healthy diet in the region, currently the highest in the world. In 2024, the regional average cost was estimated at USD 5.16 in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per person per day, above the global average of USD 4.46. As a result, around 28 percent of the regional population cannot afford a healthy diet, a figure that rises to 50 percent in the Caribbean.
A comprehensive and multidimensional approach
Against this backdrop, the document by ECLAC, FAO, IICA and CAF proposes advancing toward a new, more comprehensive and multidimensional approach to productivity that combines economic efficiency with environmental sustainability and social inclusion.
It proposes a new generation of public policies aimed at strengthening agricultural research, expanding access to financing, modernizing technical assistance and rural extension services, promoting digital transformation and encouraging more sustainable and diversified production systems.
The report explains that the future of agricultural growth will increasingly depend on efficiency and innovation because between 2023 and 2032, 79 percent of the global increase in crop production will come from productivity improvements and only 15 percent from the expansion of agricultural land.
The publication stresses that overcoming productivity stagnation requires removing structural barriers, strengthening regional cooperation and building coordinated policies capable of connecting innovation, financing, knowledge and sustainability, for which it proposes eight lines of action.
These are: enabling policies as the structural basis for productive transformation; financing as an ecosystem that mobilizes all resources needed for innovation and sustainability; technical assistance and rural extension services that strengthen productivity capacities; technology and digital innovation leading toward smart and inclusive agriculture; efficient and intelligent use of inputs and natural resources; sustainable and diversified production systems; trade and regional integration as drivers of productivity and innovation; and value addition at origin to retain and multiply value in territories.
The event concluded with remarks by Héctor Huergo, agronomist and renowned journalist, currently director of Clarín Rural in Argentina, who called on the organizations behind the document to “go beyond their own borders and collaborate so that this new narrative on the role of agriculture in the Americas reaches the international stage.”
“The document lays out the problems, the relatively low productivity, but as an average of a highly heterogeneous situation in which we have some of the highest productivity levels on the planet alongside others still somewhat stuck in the mud of helplessness caused by structural problems that we have not been able to solve. Fortunately, this report places that task squarely on the table. It is a call for governments to act in the right direction to reduce the gap between those moving at high speed and those still trapped in backwardness and the general lack of progress,” he concluded.  |
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