The Next Global Breadbasket: How Latin America Can Feed The World

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Addressing humanity’s great challenge — finding sustainable ways to feed rapidly increasing numbers
of people around the world — is Latin America’s great opportunity.

Across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a more productive and environmentally sustainable agriculture system holds great promise for achieving food security around the world — as well as for the region’s development, for poverty alleviation and for social progress.

The LAC region has a third of the world’s fresh water resources, the most of any developing region when measured on a per capita basis, and more than a quarter of the world’s medium to high potential farmland. The region as a whole is already the largest net food exporting region in the world, and it still has achieved only a small fraction of its potential to expand agricultural production for regional consumption and global export.

The next 10 to 20 years offer a critical window of opportunity to advance new forms of productive and environmentally sustainable agriculture in the region. With that in mind, we have set out to illustrate the great potential that exists, the obstacles and challenges that stand in the way of realizing that potential, and how the private and public sectors can and must move forward together.

Drawing on the knowledge and experiences of public and private sector entities, and from people working in and for the region, we offer herein a set of issues, recommendations and action items for governments and policy makers, the donor community, farmers and agribusiness, and civil society.