(27 April 2010) Agricultural production will recover significantly in most countries in the region in 2010, but will be increasingly subject to climatic factors and the performance of international demand, according to a joint report of the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) released today.
The document Perspectives of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Americas: A Look at Latin America and the Caribbean 2010 was presented today during the 31st Regional Conference of the FAO taking place this week in Panama City.
The recovery of agriculture is important in order to revert the effects of the global economic crisis, which have been greater in the region's rural areas, stated Adrián Rodríguez, Officer in Charge of the Agricultural Development Unit at ECLAC.
According to a survey taken for this report, agricultural production increased in 24 of the 34 countries examined during 2009, it contracted in seven countries and remained the same in three. The pace of recovery of developed and developing economies opens expectations for agricultural production in the region to resume the dynamism it experienced between 2000 and 2007.
"We can already observe the first signs of economic recovery, with greater international trade in the region, especially exports to emerging countries in Asia and a reactivation of labour markets," said Salomón Salcedo, Chief Policy Officer at the FAO.
As a result of the greater demand for prime materials, especially from Asia, in the medium run prices are expected to be relatively higher and more volatile than in the past decade.
"Although at the end of 2008 there was a significant drop in the international price of agricultural prime materials, during 2009 agricultural production performed well in most countries in the region thanks to the countercyclical policies they applied, a slight increase in prices and good perspectives of growth, particularly in developing economies," said IICA expert Rafael Trejos.
The report notes that the livestock sector in the region grew nearly 4% annually in the past few years, double the world average, while industrial and inshore fishing of the main species in the region already reached or surpassed the maximum levels of sustainable production.
For more information, contact Adrián Rodríguez at ECLAC (adrian.rodriguez@cepal.org) and Lucas Tavares, lucas.tavares@fao.org, (562) 923 2176, (569) 91001739 and Benjamín Labatut, benjamin.labatut@fao.org , (562) 923 2174, at FAO.
For more information, contact ECLAC's Information Services. Email: dpisantiago@cepal.org; telephone: (56-2) 210-2040/2149.
