The field that feeds the world… but runs out of water
Latin America and the Caribbean have been the supermarkets of the planet for more than two decades. Since 2000, no one exports more food than this region. But the new CAF report—presented in Mexico with great fanfare—reveals an uncomfortable truth: those who produce these foods live as if the 21st century had not arrived.
Seven out of ten rural workers are in the informal sector. Without benefits, without labor rights, without protection. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“The region is consolidating itself as a ‘solution region’ to the challenges of food security and energy transition,” says the report Roots of the future: the new rural world of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Nice speech. But in the meantime, agricultural productivity remains a fraction of what Europe or the United States achieve. Technology does not arrive, connectivity is a luxury and access to drinking water continues to be a dream for millions.
Women pay the price (again)
The study also highlights something that anyone with eyes already knows: rural women carry everything. Unpaid work, fewer land rights, fewer opportunities. Gender gaps that seem stuck in another century.
And as the population ages and young people flee to the cities, governments continue to patch it up. In Mexico—which concentrates a quarter of the regional rural population—they promise legal certainty over land and gender equality in agrarian rights. It sounds nice. It remains to be seen if they comply.
The CAF proposes investing in infrastructure, digitalization and social protection. I hope it’s true. Because if I have learned anything in years covering this type of reports, it is that diagnoses are unnecessary. What is missing is a real will to change the rules of the game.
