The genuine competitiveness of farmers in the Americas

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The simultaneous crises we face have pushed agriculture and food security to the top of the global agenda.

Wars, unmistakable signs of global economic stagnation, and the increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events significantly affect the geopolitics of food.

With the global economy and international trade showing low rates of expansion and the persistence of contractionary monetary policies in the developed world, Latin America and the Caribbean begins the year projecting a slowdown in its economic growth rate compared to 2023 to a meager 1, 5%, a percentage that could be even lower in the event of a worsening of external

shocks

.

In the context of an increasingly complex world, protests by European farmers have shaken regions of the Old Continent in recent weeks, causing the European Commission to immediately halt the application of a standard to reduce limits on the use of agrochemicals.

The European Union (EU), which adopts the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as a stimulus mechanism for the sector, whose objectives and programs are renewed every five years, incorporated different sustainability goals into the CAP 2023-2027 - such as the “De la Granja” program to the Table”, which is part of the Green Pact - and has allocated 386.6 billion euros to guarantee its execution.

72% of these resources are allocated to direct payments to farmers.

The discontent of European farmers, who demand more help through subsidies and other support measures, also pointed out as a risk an avalanche of cheap food imports if the trade agreement with Mercosur is concluded.

This bi-regional pact, already delayed, seems condemned to never see the light.

This set of facts highlights a point that cannot be minimized: the genuine competitiveness of the agricultural producers of the American continent, especially those of Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that practically without subsidies assumes the responsibility of guaranteeing global food security, becoming the largest net food exporter in the world.

Considering the Americas, one in four agricultural products traded globally originates from the continent, which represents more than 28% of total exports of agricultural products in general and the same proportion in food products.

This competitiveness, which seems to be expanding in the future, is the result of decades of construction.

The region has a natural wealth that contributes to the efficient ecosystem that characterizes its agri-food production.

Added to these resources (land, water, biodiversity) is a history of policies that do not support the sector through financial aid but that have been successful due to their long-term perspective oriented towards international markets and that are combined with a private sector. with exceptional productive and business capabilities, creative and tenacious.

A powerful productive sector has germinated from the collaborative interaction between these spheres connected to science, technology and innovation.

Sectoral policies, improvement of seeds and varieties, fallow lands, development of institutions for health surveillance, adequate machinery, new forms of association and innovation in forms of production, including the expansion of Agtechs for the digitalization of agriculture, are some of the tools that promoted the development of the agri-food sector in Latin America and the Caribbean.

There are successful experiences that constitute examples of balances between productivity and sustainability, such as direct sowing, agrosilvopastoral systems, the improvement of natural grasslands, the growing traceability of production chains, sustainable livestock, the extension of the bioeconomy and dissemination of good practices, which generate effective and viable solutions and pave the construction of that unquestionable competitiveness.

The agricultural sector has an irreplaceable role in the economic and social life of our countries, which assume, along with the task of feeding the world in a sustainable way, the need to promote family farming as a bastion for the consolidation of social peace. in the region.

Our agricultural producers and our family farmers constitute the backbone of rurality on the continent.

If the challenges of the global agenda are to boost growth, create quality jobs, combat poverty and inequality, shore up resilience to climate change, protect water, biodiversity, health and nutrition and mitigate the causes that generate migrations, it is inevitable to think of agricultural development under a systemic and sustainable vision – with the farmers of the Americas as the main protagonists – as part of the solutions and not the problems.

Manuel Otero

is general director of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).