PUBLICATIONS

2019 Social Accounting Matrix for Colombia

The Nexus Project is a collaboration between IFPRI and its partners, including national statistical agencies and research institutions. Our aim is to improve the quality of social accounting matrices (SAMs) used for computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling. The Nexus Project develops toolkits and establishes common data standards, procedures, and classification systems for constructing and updating national SAMs. The 2019 Colombia SAM follows the Standard Nexus Structure. The open access version of the Colombia SAM separates domestic production into 42 activities. Factors are disaggregated into labor, agricultural land, and capital. Labor is further disaggregated across three education categories. Representative households are disaggregated by rural and urban areas and by per capita expenditure quintile. The remaining accounts include enterprises, government, taxes, savings-and-investment, and the rest of the world.

2019 Social Accounting Matrix for Colombia: A Nexus Project SAM

The 2019 Colombia Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) follows IFPRI's Standard Nexus SAM approach, by focusing on consistency, comparability, and transparency of data. The Nexus SAMs available on IFPRI's website separates domestic production into 42 activities. Factors are disaggregated into labor, agricultural land, and capital, with labor further disaggregated across three education-based categories. The household account is divided into 10 representative household groups: Rural and urban households across per capita consumption quintiles. Nexus SAMs support the improvement of model-based research and policy analysis in developing countries and allow for more robust cross-country comparisons of national economic structures, especially agriculture-food systems.

Building food security and resilience through intraregional trade in Latin America and the Caribbean

Intraregional agrifood trade in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) offers untapped opportunities for expansion. Comparative advantages in food production as well as variation in consumption patterns create a high degree of complementarity across many LAC countries. Making use of this variation to expand trade within the region could improve access to, availability, and diversity of food, as well as ensure more stable food supplies. Stable supplies are particularly important for food security given the likelihood of continued shocks, such as conflicts, epidemics, economic crises, and extreme weather events. Although trade between countries in the region plays an important role as a source of imports, more than 60 percent of LAC’s food purchases come from extraregional suppliers. However, the shares of intra- and extraregional imports vary by subregion. About 60 percent of South American food imports come from regional suppliers, but only 20 percent of Mexican and Central American imports come from LAC suppliers. In the Caribbean, the share of regional suppliers in food imports has increased over the past five years but is currently only 29 percent (UN Statistics Division, UN Comtrade 2022). Most intraregional trade takes place within subregions, meaning that trade between countries from different LAC subregions is less common and thus presents the greatest opportunities for expansion. In this analysis of trade opportunities and challenges, the authors show there is potential to expand intraregional agrifood trade in major products such as corn, soybeans, soybean meal, wheat, poultry meat, milk, and concentrated cream. Facilitating intraregional trade and establishing new trade relations between LAC countries (the extensive margin of trade) where complementarities have been identified would provide opportunities for growth in the agrifood sec tors of these countries, make LAC food systems more resilient to supply shocks, and reduce food insecurity by ensuring efficient and reliable food supplies for consumers. However, despite progress in recent years, a number of factors — including high tariff rates, nontariff measures, origin requirements, government procurement rules, government support, and high transportation costs — continue to hamper the expansion of intraregional trade. This analysis focuses exclusively on intraregional trade; it does not examine opportunities for trade with partners outside the LAC region or compare opportunities for intra regional trade to extraregional trade. While such analysis could be valuable for informing trade policy, one of our primary objectives is to encourage stronger linkages between the economies of LAC countries regardless of trade opportunities outside the region. This goal reflects the expectation that improving these linkages among neighboring countries will have positive spillovers in the form of improved resilience to shocks, stronger political cohesion, and broader cooperation across these economies. \To accurately contextualize this analysis, it is necessary to highlight the diversity of food systems within LAC. While “LAC” is a standard regional classification and our analysis includes all LAC countries, the agrifood sectors, and especially agrifood trade, in the various LAC subregions face diverse challenges and opportunities. For example, these challenges and opportunities differ markedly between the Caribbean island countries and the larger Latin American countries, most notably Brazil and Argentina. These distinctions should inform the interpretation and implementation of our findings.

Needs and opportunities for measuring rural women’s empowerment in Guatemala: Possible applications of a Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS)

Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls is reflected across policy priorities at global and national levels. Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) seeks to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. Moreover, the Government of Guatemala, through the Presi-dential Secretariat for Women (SEPREM), has supported these priorities through the National Policy for the Promotion and Comprehensive Development of Women and the Equality of Opportunities Plan 2008-2023, particularly under its Equitable Economic and Productive Development policy line, which gives the agenda a thematic focus on women’s economic empowerment. Both policy instruments are designed to guide public institutions in achieving the goals that have been set by the Council of Minis-ters of Women of Central America and the Dominican Republic (COMMCA). Economic empowerment is one of the main lines of policy action under the Regional Policy on Gender Equality and Equity of SICA (PRIEG/SICA). As such, women’s economic empowerment is being prioritized at the national level in Guatemala, and also at the regional level across Central America and the Dominican Republic.

La igualdad de género y el empoderamiento de las mujeres y niñas se ve reflejado en distintas prioridades de políticas a nivel global y local. El Objetivo de Desarrollo Sostenible 5 busca lograr la igualdad de género y empoderar a todas las mujeres y niñas. De forma correspondiente, el Gobierno de Guatemala por medio de la Secretaría Presidencial de la Mujer (Seprem) ha impulsado el tema, tanto a través de la Política Nacional de Promoción y Desarrollo Integral de las Mujeres y su Plan de Oportunidades PNPDIM-PEO 2008-2023, dentro el Eje de Desarrollo Económico y Productivo con equidad; así como también en la agenda temática de empoderamiento económico de las mujeres. Ambos instrumentos son orientadores de las instituciones públicas, a la vez que, dentro de las acciones que se han coordinado desde el Consejo de Ministras de la Mujer de Centroamérica y República Dominicana (COMMCA), el empoderamiento económico es uno de los ejes de la Política Regional de Igualdad y Equidad de Género del SICA (PRIEG/SICA). Así, el empoderamiento económico de las mujeres es una prioridad a nivel nacional en Guatemala, pero también a nivel regional.

COVID-19 and extreme weather: Impacts on food security and migration attitudes in the rural area of Guatemala

This paper examines the continuing effects of COVID-19 and exposure to weather extremes on income, dietary, and migration outcomes in the rural area of Guatemala. We rely on a comprehensive longitudinal survey of 1,612 smallholder farmers collected over three survey rounds in 2019, 2020, and 2021. We find improvements in incomes, food security, dietary diversity, and animal source foods (ASF) consumption in 2021 relative to 2020, but with levels still below pre-pandemic ones in 2019. We also find a substantial increase in the intention to emigrate that was not observed in the onset of the pandemic. In terms of the channels mediating the variations in dietary diversity and migration intentions, income shocks seem to have played a role, in contrast to direct exposure to the virus, local mobility restrictions, and food market disruptions. Importantly, households exposed to ETA and IOTA tropical storms, in addition to COVID-19, were considerably more prone to exhibit larger increases in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecure episodes and larger decreases in their diet quality and ASF consumption. The study provides novel evidence on vulnerable households’ wellbeing in the aftermath of a global crisis, including the effects of compound shocks.

COVID-19 and livelihoods in rural Guatemala: Lessons from a long term assessment and the path to recovery

The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound effects on livelihoods and food security across rural populations worldwide. This study offers a long-term assessment of the impacts of the pandemic and the path to recovery among smallholder agricultural households in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. We rely on a unique longitudinal survey of 1,262 households collected over four survey rounds between 2019 and 2022. The results show substantial recoveries in incomes, food security, and dietary diversity in the region by mid-2022 compared to 2020, but at levels still worse than pre pandemic ones. There is also a sustained increase in the intention to emigrate. The households that were initially more affected in terms of food security and nutrition but recovered faster include those located in one (San Marcos) of the three departments and families living above the poverty line, while smallholders affected by the ETA and IOTA tropical storms, non-coffee producers, and indigenous populations have taken longer to recover. In addition, we provide quantitative estimates for a subsample of households interviewed during a fifth survey round at the end of 2022, showing an average decline of about 16 percent in total household income three years after the start of the pandemic, mainly driven by a decrease in agricultural income, combined with a 26 percent increase in expenditures and an important surge in indebtedness. Overall, the study offers valuable lessons regarding the recovery of vulnerable households following a major global crisis and in a context of additional shocks, remarking the importance of continue monitoring the situation of vulnerable households, especially those exposed to recurrent (weather) shocks that also have a more exhausted portfolio of coping mechanisms & express a higher willingness to emigrate.

Feed the Future Guatemala Value Chains Project: Summary of impact evaluation study

Guatemala experiences high and continued chronic malnutrition and poverty rates, with a particular concentration around predominantly rural and indigenous areas in the Western Highlands. Agricultural development is similarly low in the region, with farmers generally cultivating small landholdings, showing low agricultural productivity, and having limited ability for capital investment and an overall lack of market opportunities, combined with a relatively weak government support. This brief presents the main findings of the impact evaluation of USAID’s Feed the Future (FTF) Guatemala Value Chains Project that aimed to increase agricultural incomes, strengthen resilience, and improve nutritional outcomes of small farmers and their families in the Western Highlands of the country. The Project was created in 2017, building on the successes and lessons learned from the previous five years of implementation of the FTF Initiative in Guatemala, and relying on four expected results: improving agricultural productivity and diversifying income generation alternatives; expanding access to markets; increasing resilience through implementation of climate-smart and nutrition sensitive agriculture; and strengthening the agriculture and food security enabling environment.

Factores que impulsan la migración de la sierra a la selva en el Perú – Nota conceptual del estudio

En el Perú, se estima que hay aproximadamente 6 millones de personas que migraron internamente en algún momento de su vida. Esto equivale al 20.3% de la población, siendo su mayoría originaria de la serranía peruana. Aunque Lima es el principal polo de atracción, en los últimos años, se ha observado un aumento en la migración hacia las regiones de Madre de Dios, Tacna, Arequipa y Moquegua. Entre el 2002 y 2007, Madre de Dios fue el departamento que tuvo la mayor cantidad de migrantes con un saldo migratorio neto de 14,8%. Comprender los patrones y las decisiones migratorias es complejo, ya que se trata de un fenómeno multidimensional determinado por un amplio conjunto de factores, incluidos factores de empuje, que alientan a las personas a mudarse de su ubicación actual, y factores de atracción, que atraen a las personas a mudarse a una nueva ubicación. Estos factores generalmente se agrupan en cuatro categorías: factores económicos (por ejemplo, oportunidades laborales, salarios); factores ambientales (por ejemplo, disponibilidad de alimentos, clima); factores sociales (por ejemplo, disponibilidad de servicios, calidad de vida); y factores culturales/de seguridad (por ejemplo, estabilidad política, delincuencia).

La seguridad alimentaria y el comercio agroalimentario en América Latina y el Caribe

América Latina y el Caribe es un importante protagonista en la producción y el comercio de productos agroalimentarios, ya que es el principal exportador neto de estos productos. La región cuenta con los recursos naturales (tierra, agua y energía renovable) y la capacidad necesaria para producir alimentos de manera sostenible y para satisfacer sus necesidades y abastecer al mundo. Sin embargo, durante 2021, la inseguridad alimentaria moderada o grave afectó al 40,6% de la población en la región (267,7 millones de personas), cifra considerablemente superior al promedio mundial (29,3%).

Aumentar la productividad es fundamental para mejorar la situación y alcanzar la seguridad alimentaria, pero con frecuencia no es suficiente. El propósito de este estudio es analizar el impacto del comercio intrarregional de alimentos en América Latina y el Caribe y su contribución a la seguridad alimentaria en la región, así como identificar oportunidades para expandir el comercio intrarregional de alimentos nutritivos.

Synopsis: Latin America and the Caribbean is the world's largest net exporting region for agrifood products, yet the region faces immediate challenges to food security. Increasing intraregional trade presents an opportunity to eradicate hunger in the region. This brief provides a synopsis of key findings from a recent FAO-IFPRI report, La Seguridad Alimentaria y el Comercio Agroalimentario en América Latina y el Caribe (Food Security and Agrifood Trade in Latin America and the Caribbean), which examines the potential for expanding intraregional trade in LAC, and offers recommendations on the way forward.

The record also includes a synopsis: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO); and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2023. Food security and agrifood trade in Latin America and the Caribbean: Synopsis. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://doi.org/10.2499/9780896294615

Replication Data for "COVID-19 and Extreme Weather: Impacts on Food Security and Migration Attitudes in the Rural Area of Guatemala"

The dataset comprises a panel of 1,612 agricultural households located across 75 communities in the departments of Huehuetenango, Quiche, and San Marcos in Guatemala that were both interviewed in person in November-December 2019, for the baseline survey, and over the phone in a follow-up survey in May-June 2020 and May-June 2021 to assess the impacts of COVID-19 on individual and social preferences. This is only subset of the data which is constructed from these three surveys and consist limited information household socioeconomic characteristics, dwelling characteristics, income, asset ownership, agricultural activities, changes in food consumption, food insecure experiences, and self-reported preferences. The full dataset is planned for release in near future after completion of few more rounds of follow-up survey.

CACCI country profile Brazil

Brazil has made significant advances in the fight against climate change. The country is highly susceptible to climate impacts due to its geographic location and diverse territory. This territory is exposed to floods, earthquakes, landslides, droughts, and diseases, which put the population and national development at risk. Most greenhouse gas emissions come from three major economic activities: agriculture, land use, and energy. These sectors are highly vulnerable to climate change as they depend on natural resources to function. The country has been working on the creation and implementation of a variety of instruments to reduce emissions and address climate impacts. These instruments take into consideration the public, private and civil society sectors.

CACCI country profile Ecuador

Ecuador has great climatic variability, due to its geological diversity and variety in altitude and terrain. The country has two seasons: rainy and dry. Ecuador faces a variety of climatic risks such as floods and landslides caused by the increase in annual rainfall during phenomena such as El Niño, as well as droughts that weaken soils and affect agricultural processes. Likewise, there are effects caused by rising sea levels, melting glaciers, and vulnerability of water sources. The sectors that generate the greatest emissions in the country are energy, land use, and agriculture, which are vital for social and economic development. It is important to highlight the efforts made by the country through public policies and other instruments focused on the fight against climate change, which are aligned with its constitution and international agreements. In this way, Ecuador has a bases and guidelines for the development of strategies with an interdisciplinary approach and considering all the actors.

CACCI country profile Peru

Peru faces a variety of climate risks just like the rest of the countries in the region. Being a country rich in biodiversity and climatic variety, Peru experiences different climatic impacts, which have been increasing in severity over time. These include increased rainfall, increased periods of drought, and soil degradation, among many other effects. For this reason, Peru has implemented numerous measures to fight against the effects of climate change. These measures focus on sectors vital to the development of the country, along with industries and services that are most directly affected by climate change. Actions have utilized international and national instruments strengthened for the current climate crisis, always taking into consideration all parts of the system by carrying out inter-institutional and multilevel interventions.

Government response to ultra-processed and sugar beverages industries in developing nations: The need to build coalitions across policy sectors

How were the governments of three middle-income countries with high levels of non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—India, Mexico, and South Africa—able to implement sugar-sweetened beverage taxes (SSBs) despite intense opposition from powerful corporations? Employing a multiple streams analytical framework to explain the agenda-setting process, this chapter highlights several factors that generated supportive coalitions for SSBs, including the importance of transnational advocacy in each country as well as governments’ interest in generating more revenue from the tax. By contrast, regulatory measures to regulate the soda and snack food industries, such as limits on advertising, sales, and food labeling, have been less accepted by the same governments. To explain why, the chapter argues that coalitions around these policies are weaker, regulation generates lower levels of public contestation and visibility, and the prospect for generating government revenue is less pronounced.

Climatic stresses and rural emigration in Guatemala

International migration is a recurrent and growing phenomenon and a large share of emigrants originate from rural areas. This study examines the association between climatic stresses and rural emigration in Guatemala. We exploit variations on climatic stress situations and emigration flows at the subnational level and over time to examine whether the observed migration dynamics can be explained by the occurrence of specific adverse weather events. We find that drought periods affect emigration positively the following year, especially among men, while periods of high temperatures and low soil moisture affect male and female emigration negatively. The results are generally not much sensitive to alternative model specifications and estimations. The apparent mixed findings point to both direct effects where climatic stresses may encourage people to migrate in search of better opportunities, as well as indirect effects in the sense that climatic stresses affect agricultural productivity and household liquidity, which may prevent people from migrating despite their willingness to emigrate.

Aspirations, risk preferences, and investments in agricultural technologies

Structuring the complexity of integrated landscape approaches into selectable, scalable, and measurable attributes

Integrated landscape approaches (ILA) aim to reconcile multiple, often competing, interests across agriculture, nature conservation, and other land uses. Recognized ILA design principles provide guidance for implementation, yet application remains challenging, and a strong performance evidence-base is yet to be formed. Through a critical literature review and focus group discussions with practitioners, we identified considerable diversity of ILA in actors, temporal, and spatial scales, inter alia. This diversity hampers learning from and steering ILA because of the intractable nature of the concept. Therefore, we developed a tool—an ‘ILA mixing board’—to structure the complexity of ILA into selectable and scalable attributes in a replicable way to allow planning, diagnosing, and comparing ILA. The ILA mixing board tool presents seven qualifiers, each representing a key attribute of ILA design and performance (for example, project flexibility, inclusiveness of the dialogue, and the centrality of the power distribution). Each qualifier has five (non-normative) outcome indicators that can be registered as present or absent. This process in turn guides planners, evaluators and other participating stakeholders involved in landscape management to diagnose the ILA type, or its performance. We apply the ILA mixing board to three ILA cases in Nicaragua, Madagascar, and the Congo Basin to show some of the many possible configurations of qualifiers on the mixing board. Further application of the tool would allow comparative analysis of the complexity of ILA in a structured and manageable way thereby enhancing the understanding of ILA performance and informing the development of evidence-based land use policy.

CACCI country profile Colombia

Colombia has focused on deepening the understanding of its vulnerability and risk to climate change. The Third National Communication on Climate Change (TCNCC) of 2017 shows that 13% of the departments are in the very high category of climate vulnerability. In addition, all of its territory has some level of threat due to climate change and 56% of the departments are in the very high threat category, as shown in its NDC 2020. One of the major concerns is that most of the country's emissions are generated by three important sectors: Agriculture, Land Use Change and Forestry, and Energy. These sectors are also highly vulnerable to climate impacts. The country has developed a significant number of policies and programs focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation, which take into account all stakeholders involved, from the public sector to the private sector and civil society recognizing that the implementation of the actions that the country has established is the responsibility of all actors.

Can agricultural exports from Southern Cone countries make up for global supply disruptions arising from the Russia-Ukraine war?

The economies of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay), major agricultural exporters still recovering from the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, have benefited from the rise in international prices accompanying the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With the war disrupting global supplies, the net exporting countries of the region have the opportunity to increase their exports. If these countries, especially Mercosur members, can boost production enough to offset the loss of Ukraine exports, it would go a long way toward stabilizing markets and world food security. However, like the rest of the world, these countries are operating in the difficult current environment of global economic slowdown, rising energy and fertilizer prices, and rising inflation. In this post, we examine responses of Southern Cone countries to the disruptions in agricultural markets caused by the war, and their prospects going forward.

Assessing the impacts of climate change on women's poverty: A Bolivian case study

Climate change affects men and women differently, and pre-existing gender disparities may worsen. We use a gendered computable general equilibrium model linked with microsimulations to assess the distributive effects of climate change in Bolivia. Two scenarios are evaluated. The first scenario addresses capital and land damages, while the second analyses the decrease in agricultural production yields. We find that both scenarios have negative impacts on the Bolivian economy. The scenarios drive down employment and increase the burden of domestic work, especially for women. Furthermore, both simulations reveal negative impacts on poverty, with women in rural areas being the most affected.

Cultural and economic barriers and opportunities for the participation of women in agricultural production systems: A case study in Guatemala

As in other Latin American countries, agricultural activities in Guatemala contribute with 32% of the total employment (65% in rural areas), but only one in every ten individuals employed in these activities are women. This study examines the cultural and economic barriers and opportunities for the participation of women in agricultural (crop and livestock) production systems. We rely on a qualitative approach involving focus group discussions with 15–20 women in each of the eight communities visited in the departments of Chiquimula (Dry Corridor) and Huehuetenango (Western Highlands) in October 2022. The study provides several interesting findings, which generally hold across locations. First, women do not seem to have a strong preference for crop production activities, except harvesting, and only get involved in specifically assigned tasks. This lack of interest and participation in crop-related activities, which can be related to low empowerment levels and traditional stereotypes in the community about gender roles, persist even in locations with a higher emigration of men, where women could be expected to take over traditionally male crop-related tasks. Second, participants carry out a variety of other unpaid activities, including raising small-scale livestock and maintaining home gardens, which they do not recognize as formal, income-generating occupations despite their more active role. Third, women consider the commercialization of their products a persistent challenge as they do not have access to markets beyond their community, which additionally results in a deterrent to applying for credits due to a generalized fear of defaulting. Despite their day-to-day economic hardship, participants’ main aspirations point to generating more income in non-crop-related activities, mainly livestock farming and raising, or, alternatively, emigrating to provide a better future for their children. These findings remark the importance of offering extensive support to women to not only start new activities, as it has been the case of several public and private initiatives in the area, but help them through continuous extension services on production, storage, and commercialization; management and accounting; and financial literacy, as well as on building agency capacity through existing women groups and organizations and enabling the environment for improved access to markets and credit.

Unlocking innovation: Assessing the role of Agricultural R&D in Latin America and the Caribbean

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of public agricultural research and development (R&D) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), focusing on the contextual factors influencing agricultural R&D investment and their implications for agricultural productivity growth. The analysis combines new data for ten LAC countries collected by the International Food Policy Research Institute's (IFPRI's) Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) program with support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), with existing ASTI and other datasets. By integrating these various datasets, the report provides an in-depth examination of recent trends in public agricultural research spending, capacity, and outputs across the LAC region. Despite the demonstrated high returns on agricultural R&D investments, LAC countries continue to lag in allocating sufficient resources to this critical area. The traditional agricultural research model faces major challenges in keeping pace with the evolving agricultural landscape and food system more broadly.

Measuring changes in Guatemala’s agri-food system

Transformation of the agri-food system (AFS) is a leading pathway to achieve the USG Global Food Security Strategy Objective 1 of “Inclusive agriculture-led growth”. The AFS encompasses the primary agricultural sector, as well as all upstream and downstream agriculture-related activities. An expansion of the AFS’s off-farm components is central to the process of agricultural transformation and is strongly associated with economic development. The Percent change in value-added in the agri-food system (AgGDP+) and Employment in the agri-food system (AgEMP+) indicators are useful to track this process.

Changes in children’s and adolescents’ dietary intake after the implementation of Chile’s law of food labeling, advertising and sales in schools: A longitudinal study

Background
In June 2016, a comprehensive food policy was implemented in Chile that included front-of-package warning labels on key nutrients of concern (total sugars, added saturated fats, sodium, and calories), child-directed food advertisement bans, and school regulations. The policy was implemented in 3 phases from 2016 to 2019 and the primary objective was to improve children’s food environments. This study’s objective was to assess changes in child and adolescent intake of key nutrients of concern (total sugars, saturated fats, and sodium) at school after the initial implementation of Chile’s Law of Food Labeling and Advertisement.

Methods
Longitudinal study of 349 children from the Food Environment Chilean Cohort (FECHIC) and 294 adolescents from the Growth and Obesity Cohort Study (GOCS). Data were from single 24-hour dietary recalls collected from 2016 to 2019. Fixed-effects models stratified by school, home, and other locations compared nutrient consumption in each year to consumption at the pre-policy 2016 baseline. Nutrient intakes are expressed as percent of total energy.

Results
Compared to 2016 (pre-policy), total sugars consumed by children at school decreased 4.5 [-8.0, -0.9] percentage points (pp) and 11.8 [-15.4, -8.3] pp in 2018 and 2019 respectively. In 2019, children’s saturated fats and sodium intake at school also decreased (1.1 [-1.9, -0.2] pp and 10.3 [-18.1, -2.5] mg/100 kcal respectively). Likewise, in adolescents, total sugars and saturated fats consumed at school decreased in 2018 (5.3 [-8.4, -2.2] pp and 1.5 [-2.7, -0.3] pp respectively). However, consumption of key nutrients of concern at other locations increased after implementation of the policy.

Conclusions
After initial implementation of Chile’s Labeling Law, intake of most key nutrients of concern significantly declined at school. However, we found evidence of compensatory behavior in out-of-school settings. Further research is needed to evaluate what other actions are needed to impact overall diets in the long term both at schools and out of school.

The unintended consequences of confinement: Evidence from the rural area in Guatemala

Individual and social preferences have shown to be important factors in individual decision making and general economic performance. Yet, they are usually assumed as given and stable, underestimating their impact in the rhythm of economic recovery after a natural disaster or pandemic. This paper examines the effects of COVID-19 initial confinement on households’ individual and social preferences across small communities in the rural area of Guatemala. We use a comprehensive panel household survey of agricultural smallholders collected during two survey rounds in 2019, prior to the pandemic, and 2020 and find that preferences generally shifted following the onset of the pandemic. We observe a significant increase in risk tolerance, deteriorated perceptions towards trust and generosity, and a higher frequency of emotional issues, while intra-household relationships remain stable. We find that experiencing a household adverse situation, a higher degree of exposure to the virus, and more stringent local confinement measures shaped several of the variations in preferences. The focus of the study on a region with high poverty and malnutrition rates offers important insights of the consequences of confinement on perceptions and attitudes in complex and vulnerable rural contexts during the wake of a public health emergency.

Illusions and disillusions with poverty reduction strategies: Growth, crisis and the MDGs in Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua

Quality of vital event data for infant mortality estimation in prospective, population-based studies: an analysis of secondary data from Asia, Africa, and Latin America

Introduction
Infant and neonatal mortality estimates are typically derived from retrospective birth histories collected through surveys in countries with unreliable civil registration and vital statistics systems. Yet such data are subject to biases, including under-reporting of deaths and age misreporting, which impact mortality estimates. Prospective population-based cohort studies are an underutilized data source for mortality estimation that may offer strengths that avoid biases.
Methods
We conducted a secondary analysis of data from the Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group, including 11 population-based pregnancy or birth cohort studies, to evaluate the appropriateness of vital event data for mortality estimation. Analyses were descriptive, summarizing study designs, populations, protocols, and internal checks to assess their impact on data quality. We calculated infant and neonatal morality rates and compared patterns with Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data.
Results
Studies yielded 71,760 pregnant women and 85,095 live births. Specific field protocols, especially pregnancy enrollment, limited exclusion criteria, and frequent follow-up visits after delivery, led to higher birth outcome ascertainment and fewer missing deaths. Most studies had low follow-up loss in pregnancy and the first month with little evidence of date heaping. Among studies in Asia and Latin America, neonatal mortality rates (NMR) were similar to DHS, while several studies in Sub-Saharan Africa had lower NMRs than DHS. Infant mortality varied by study and region between sources.
Conclusions
Prospective, population-based cohort studies following rigorous protocols can yield high-quality vital event data to improve characterization of detailed mortality patterns of infants in low- and middle-income countries, especially in the early neonatal period where mortality risk is highest and changes rapidly.

Bolivia: Agricultural R&D indicators factsheet

Bolivia’s agricultural R&D spending is characterized by considerable year-toyear fluctuations. The costs of R&D programs, running the day-to-day operations of laboratories, and muchneeded capital investments are chiefly funded by donors and development banks. Dependence on this type of funding—which by nature is volatile and ad hoc—makes the country somewhat vulnerable to funding shocks. Bolivia’s agricultural research spending has not kept pace with growth in agricultural output. The country’s agricultural research intensity ratio—that is agricultural research spending as a percentage of agricultural GDP—halved from 1.0 to 0.5 percent during 2015–2020. Bolivia’s agricultural research investment is too low to effectively address farm productivity challenges of the rural poor and threats posed by climate change. Compared with most countries in South America, Bolivian agricultural R&D agencies employ relatively few researchers with PhD degrees. In addition, a considerable portion of the most highly qualified researchers are set to retire in the coming decade. The country will need to recruit and train the next generation of agricultural researchers without delay and provide the necessary conditions to maintain their commitment over time.

Nicaragua: Agricultural R&D indicators factsheet

The IDB-funded PFPAS program has provided an important financial injection into Nicaragua’s agricultural research system during 2013–2018. The program has made important strides in rehabilitating some of INTA’s run-down research infrastructure, in offering degree and short-term training to research staff, and in strengthening linkages between agricultural research and producers. Notwithstanding the important achievements of PFPAS, Nicaragua’s agricultural R&D investment levels remain too low to provide the necessary technological solutions to enhance agricultural productivity and reduce rural poverty. As of 2020, the country invested just 0.22 percent of its agricultural GDP in agricultural research, which is insufficient to effectively address the many challenges the agricultural sector is facing. Nicaragua lacks a critical mass of highly qualified agricultural researchers. Building on the achievements of PFPAS, continued and accelerated training of young researchers to the MSc and PhD level remains critical. In addition, local university programs in agricultural sciences need to be strengthened so that more scientists have the opportunity to pursue higher level degrees in-country.

COVID-19 study in rural areas of Guatemala: Long-term impacts on food security and nutrition in the Western Highlands

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guatemalan farmers have endured multiple challenges brough about by national and local restrictions to movement as well as disruptions in agricultural value chains. Similarly, farmers have been exposed to several external shocks such as ETA and IOTA tropical storms that hit the country in late 2020 and the recent conflict in East Europe and price crisis. This study examines the long-term effects of the COVID-19 environment on the food security and nutrition of rural households in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. The analysis is based on information from a panel of 1,262 smallholder households in the departments of Huehuetenango, Quiche, and San Marcos, collected during four survey rounds during November-December 2019 (face-to-face), May-June 2020 (by phone), May-June 2021 (by phone), and May-June 2022 (by phone). The study places special emphasis on evaluating changes in agricultural and non-agricultural income sources —including remittances—, and changes in dietary diversity —including consumption of animal-sourced foods (ASF) and fruits and vegetables (F&V)— at the household level, as well as among women between 15 and 49 years and children between 6 and 23 months. The results show some improvements in 2022 in income, food security and household dietary patterns in relation to previous years, but the levels are still lower than those reported before the pandemic (in 2019). The study also explores the effect of recent changes in the availability and prices of agricultural inputs faced by the smallholders as a result of the war between Ukraine and Russia, among other factors.

Pollinator deficits, food consumption, and consequences for human health: A modeling study

Background: Animal pollination supports agricultural production for many healthy foods, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes, that provide key nutrients and protect against noncommunicable disease. Today, most crops receive suboptimal pollination because of limited abundance and diversity of pollinating insects. Animal pollinators are currently suffering owing to a host of direct and indirect anthropogenic pressures: land-use change, intensive farming techniques, harmful pesticides, nutritional stress, and climate change, among others.
Objectives: We aimed to model the impacts on current global human health from insufficient pollination via diet.

Biodiversity and resilience interventions: Analysis of interviews with farmers in Brazil

This note summarizes the results of interviews with 16 farmers in Brazil to identify the motivations and challenges that impact farmers’ adoption of practices that improve biodiversity. Respondents were identified by reaching out to companies, traders, and active NGOs who provided information on interest groups and producers, and thus were not representative. All interviews were conducted through either Google Meet or WhatsApp phone call. The interviews were part of the Enhancing Biodiversity and Resil-ience in Crop Production project, which was commissioned by Bayer and implemented in collaboration with ETH Zurich and IFPRI. The project analyzed information that can contribute to guidance on using agricultural practices to improve biodiversity and resilience of farming systems. It focused on intensive maize, wheat, and soy production systems in France, Germany, Brazil, and the United States.

Peru: Agricultural R&D indicators factsheet

After years of stagnant budgets, inadequate infrastructure, a constantly shifting policy environment, and high rates of staff turnover, the National Agricultural Innovation Program (PNIA) gave an important impulse to Peru’s agricultural research system. Running from 2015 until 2021, PNIA strengthened the system through a combination of institutional reforms, staff training, and competitive research and innovation grants. Peru’s agricultural research spending doubled with the launch of PNIA. As a percentage of AgGDP, agricultural research spending rose from just 0.32 percent in 2014 to around 0.6 percent during 2015–2017. In more recent years, however, this research intensity ratio has slipped again towards 0.4 levels. It is important that the advances made during the PNIA years are not eroded in the absence of viable mechanism to sustain agricultural R&D and innovation on the long run. Most of Peru’s PhD-qualified agricultural researchers are over 60 years old, posing a significant problem for the future conduct and continuity of agricultural research. The country will need to recruit and train scientists without delay, and provide the necessary remuneration, working conditions, and incentives to maintain their commitment over time. A necessary first step is to reduce the salary gap between researchers employed at INIA and those at universities.

Ecuador: Agricultural R&D indicators factsheet

This factsheet presents recent data on the agricultural research system of Ecuador, primarily focusing on key financial, human resource, institutional, and output indicators, while also highlighting relevant trends, challenges, and institutional changes.

Guatemala: Agricultural R&D indicators factsheet

This factsheet presents recent data on the agricultural research system of Guatemala, primarily focusing on key financial, human resource, institutional, and output indicators, while also highlighting relevant trends, challenges, and institutional changes.

Agricultural commercialization and nutrition: Evidence from smallholder coffee farmers

Agricultural commercialization, or the transition from growing crops for home consumption to growing some or all crops for sale, enables farmers to earn cash income that they can use to buy food in markets. This additional income may enable smallholders to purchase more healthy and/or unhealthy calories in the market, impacting their nutrition. While previous studies have examined the impact of commercialization on undernutrition, this study analyzes the impact of commercialization on overweight and obesity. Survey data from smallholder coffee farmers in rural Guatemala is used to estimate the impact of commercialization on body mass index for male and female household heads. Additionally, we explore the different pathways through which commercialization can impact nutrition, including household calorie availability, crop production, income, and gender. The empirical analysis employs an instrumental variable approach to control for endogeneity issues. Our estimation results suggest that commercialization, both in general and through dependence on coffee, leads to overweight and obesity in more commercialized households. Further, our analysis shows that while there is no relationship between commercialization of crops in general and household calorie availability, coffee dependence lowers household calorie availability. We also find that coffee dependent households decrease their production diversity and do not earn more agricultural income, both of which may negatively contribute to their nutrition. As rural areas become increasingly integrated with markets, understanding the transmission channels between agricultural commercialization and nutrition is critical.

Honduras: The impact of COVID-19 and other shocks, and policy implications: Final report

Two previous reports (Díaz Bonilla, Laborde and Piñeiro, 2021, and Diaz-Bonilla, Flores, Paz, Piñeiro, and Zandstra, 2021) covered the evolution and impacts of the pandemic on food systems in Honduras until the time of their writings (which together cover from the start of the pandemic in early 2020 until October 2021). This third report concludes the assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food systems in Honduras, recapitulating the previous ones and updating the analysis until the end of May 2022. This country and its food systems, however, have been also affected by other events since the pandemic started in early 2020, such as the tropical storms Eta and Iota in November 2020. Subsequently, in 2021 the strong world economic rebound due to expansionary fiscal and monetary policies in the USA and other countries, generated strains on value chains, leading to increases in transportation costs and the prices of food, energy and fertilizers. In the case of agricultural products, those increases were compounded by adverse climate events in some important producing areas, particularly in South America. Finally, the Russian-Ukraine Conflict (RUC) on February 24, 2022, has added further pressures on prices of energy, fertilizers, and some food products (such as wheat and vegetable oils). Therefore, the specific impact of the pandemic on food systems in Honduras has been interacting with the other developments mentioned. From the point of view of policymakers, they need to respond to the overall impact of the conditions affecting the population, whatever the converging main causes may be. Therefore, this final report, while emphasizing those aspects linked to the pandemic will also discuss the overall conditions in Honduras, affected by those many factors. This report is structured as follows. First, it summarizes the main policy responses, costs, and financing related to the COVID-19 shock. Second, it brings up to date the evolution of the pandemic, using different indicators. Third, it updates the evolution of key economic and nutritional variables. Fourth, there is a brief discussion of the implications of RUC for food systems. Fifth, the report continues with a more specific analysis of the evolution of some food value chains that are central to food consumption in Honduras. The next section discusses policy considerations for health, poverty and nutrition, and food value chains, in light of the updated analysis. A final section concludes.

Guatemala: The impact of covid-19 and other shocks, and policy implications: Final report

Two previous reports (Díaz Bonilla, Laborde and Piñeiro, 2021, and Diaz-Bonilla, Flores, Paz, Piñeiro, and Zandstra, 2021) covered the evolution and impacts of the pandemic on food systems in Guatemala until the time of their writing (which together covered from the start of the pandemic in early 2020 until about October 2021. This third report concludes the analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food systems in Guatemala. It summarizes the previous reports and updates the analysis until the end of May 2022. However, this country and its food systems have also been affected by other events since the pandemic started in early 2020. Between 3 and 17 November 2020, tropical storms Eta and Iota hit Guatemalan territory with heavy rains that led to floods and mud landslides, affecting 16 of the country's 22 departments. Later, in 2021 the strong world economic rebound due to expansionary fiscal and monetary policies in the USA and many other developed and developing countries combined with persistent strains on value chains due to COVID19 to lead to increases in transportation costs and the prices of food, energy, and fertilizers. In the case of agricultural products, those increases were com-pounded by adverse climate events in some important producers, particularly in South America. Finally, the Russian-Ukraine Conflict (RUC) on February 24, 2022, has added further pressures on the prices of energy, fertilizers and food products including wheat and vegetable oils. Therefore, the pandemic's specific impact on Guatemala's food systems has been interacting with the other developments mentioned, making it very difficult to differentiate among them. Policymakers, how-ever, need to respond to the overall impact of the conditions affecting the population, whatever the leading causes may be. Therefore, this final report, while emphasizing those aspects linked to the pan-demic, will discuss the conditions in Guatemala considering those other factors. This report is structured as follows. First, it summarizes the main policy responses, costs, and financing related to the COVID-19 shock. Second, it brings up to date the evolution of the pandemic, using differ-ent indicators. Third, it updates the evolution of key economic and nutritional variables. Fourth, there is a brief discussion of the implications of RUC for food systems.. Fifth, the report continues with a more specific analysis of the evolution of some food value chains that are central for food consumption in Guatemala. The next section discusses policy considerations for health, poverty and nutrition, and food value chains, based on the updated analysis of the previous sections, including cost and financial as-pects. A final section concludes.

COVID-19 and extreme weather: Impacts on food security and migration attitudes in rural Guatemala

This paper examines the continuing effects of COVID-19 and exposure to weather extremes on income, dietary, and migration outcomes in rural Guatemala. We rely on a comprehensive longitudinal survey of 1,612 smallholder farmers collected over three survey rounds in 2019, 2020, and 2021. We find improvements in incomes, food security, and dietary diversity in 2021 relative to 2020, but with levels still below pre-pandemic ones in 2019. We also find a substantial increase in the intention to emigrate that was not observed in the onset of the pandemic. In terms of the channels mediating the variations in dietary diversity and migration intentions, income shocks seem to have played a role, in contrast to direct exposure to the virus, local mobility restrictions, and food market disruptions. Importantly, households exposed to ETA and IOTA tropical storms, in addition to COVID-19, were considerably more prone to exhibit larger increases in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecure episodes and larger decreases in their diet quality. The study provides novel evidence on vulnerable households’ wellbeing in the aftermath of a global crisis, including the effects of compound shocks.

Historical analysis of governance at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)

To analyze the governance arrangements of an institution it is necessary to understand the history and reasons for its creation, which, among other things, define its nature and the basic pacts and agreements (with the power balances implied) among the main actors involved. This document shows how the IDB emerged from a centuries-long interaction between LAC countries and the United States, on economic, political, and military matters. That dialogue led to the consideration of several regional financial institutions, including the 1940 Inter-American Bank, which was the predecessor of both the World Bank and the IMF. After the IDB was created in 1959, that dialogue was extended since the 1970s to the current partners from Europe and Asia, making the bank a global institution.

Improving livelihoods and reducing outmigration from the Northern Triangle in Central America: The potential role of cash transfers in expanded social safety nets

In 2019 almost 45 million immigrants lived in the United States, or about 13.7% of the total population, approaching the record high of 14.8% in 1890. Of that total, about 77% are lawful residents (either nat-uralized, permanent residents, or temporary residents), and the difference (about 23% or 11 million per-sons) are illegal immigrants. Both in the case of legal and illegal immigrants, the largest percentage is from Mexico (24% of the legal immigrants and somewhat less than 50% of the illegal ones, but those percentages have been declining since the mid-2000s). About 20% of the illegal immigration living in the US in 2017 came from Central America, principally El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala (Ameri-can Immigration Council, 2021 and Passel and D’Vera Cohn, 2019). Overall, these three countries are the origin of about 3.3 million immigrants (legal and illegal) in the US in 2019 (Babich and Batalova, 2021).

Regional developments [in 2022 Global Food Policy Report]

Climate change is a truly global threat, but its impacts differ around the world. Regions and countries urgently need to identify and implement policy responses that reflect local needs and opportunities. This section examines the effects of climate change on national and regional food systems in Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, East and Southeast Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. For each major region, promising innovations and policy directions to promote the resilience and sustainability of food systems are considered: - Scaling up social protection programs in Africa south of the Sahara - Strengthening the focus on climate adaptation in Africa - Rethinking water use in the Middle East and North Africa - Promoting climate-smart practices and crop diversification in Central Asia - Reforming agricultural support policies in South Asia - Improving financing for climate change mitigation and adaptation in East and Southeast Asia - Supporting global food security and sustainability in Latin America and the Caribbean

Short-term impacts of COVID-19 in rural Guatemala: Call for a closer, continuous look at the food security and nutritional patterns of vulnerable families

In early 2020, Guatemala reacted swiftly to the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. It was one of the first countries in Latin America to impose strict measures to contain the spread of infection, including travel restrictions and a six-month nationwide lockdown beginning March 21 (eight days after its first reported case), comprising a temporary halt of activities in the private and public sectors, suspension of public transportation, and mobility restrictions, with a strict curfew from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. According to the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), the country’s measures were among the top five in Latin America in terms of stringency.

Conditional cash transfers and high school attainment: Evidence from a large-scale program in the Dominican Republic

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are widely implemented in developing countries but evidence of their medium- and long-term effects on educational achievements is still relatively scarce. This paper examines the impact of a large-scale CCT program on high school attainment in the Dominican Republic. We implement a quasi-experimental approach combining extensive educational, administrative, and household records from program participants across the country and exploiting variations in the scheme (amount) of school transfers received among program participants. We find that receiving additional transfers specific for high school education is, on average, associated with an 11.7-13.2 percentage points higher probability of completing high school relative to not receiving these transfers. We do not find major differences across urban and rural areas nor between female and male students. The transfers seem to play an important role during the last high school year of targeted students. The estimated impacts point to non-negligible effects on employment, salaries, and delayed parenthood. Several robustness checks support our findings.

Land market distortions and aggregate agricultural productivity: Evidence from Guatemala

Farm size and land allocation are important factors in explaining lagging agricultural productivity in developing countries. This paper examines the effect of land market imperfections on land allocation across farmers and aggregate agricultural productivity. We develop a theoretical framework to model the optimal size distribution of farms and assess to what extent market imperfections can explain non-optimal land allocation and output inefficiency. We measure these distortions for the case of Guatemala using agricultural census microdata. We find that due to land market imperfections aggregate output is 19% below its efficient level for both maize and beans and 31% below for coffee, which are three major crops produced nationwide. We also observe that areas with higher distortions show higher land price dispersion and less active rental markets. The degree of land market distortions across areas co-variate to some extent with road accessibility, ethnicity, and education.

Women’s tenure security on collective lands: A conceptual framework

Within discussions of land and resource rights, there is growing attention to women’s rights, mostly in terms of household and individual rights to private property. This leaves unanswered questions about whether and how women’s land rights can be secured under collective tenure, upon which billions of people worldwide depend. There is an important gap in conceptual tools, empirical understanding, and policy recommendations on women’s land rights within collective tenure. To address this gap and lay the foundations for a sound body of empirical studies and appropriate policies, we develop a conceptual framework to improve our understanding of women’s land rights under collective tenure. We begin by discussing what secure tenure for women on collective lands would entail. We then present the conceptual framework for what factors would affect women’s tenure security, building on a framework for land tenure security that focuses on individual and household tenure. We give attention to particularities of rangelands, forests, and other types of lands as well as commonalities across types of collective lands. A key theme that emerges is that for women to have secure tenure under collective tenure, two dimensions must be in place. First, the collective (group) itself must have tenure security. Second, women must have secure rights within this collective. The latter requires us to consider the governance structures, how men and women access and control land, and the extent to which women have voice and power within the collective. More consistent analyses of collective tenure systems using the framework presented in this paper can help to identify which action resources are important for groups to secure rights to collective lands, and for women to advocate for their rights within the group.

Can input access and market-based incentives reduce food loss? The case of bean farmers in Guatemala and Honduras

Rapid population growth, urbanization, and increasing pressure on the world’s available agricultural land all pose challenges to food security. Policies to address them aim to increase agricultural yields and productivity rather than reducing food loss. Research on food loss reduction and its impact on improving food security has been limited, with much of the focus on technical interventions to reduce losses at post-harvest stages. Specifically, studies focus on storage and offer limited evidence on where losses occur in the value chain and how cost-effective the interventions are (Stathers et al., 2020). Building on Delgado et al. (2021 a, b) and FAO (2019), whose findings identified that food loss is not only significant at post-harvest stages but also at the pre-harvest level; this paper tested a market-based incentive intervention that could reduce food loss across the value chain. The intervention provided farmers with information on the attributes of food quality buyers required to pay a market price premium. If those attributes were achieved, then it meant that the intervention could lead to food loss reduction, outperforming traditional reduction policies set out by governments, including the provision of input packages. To test this market-based incentives, a randomized control trial (RCT) was conducted with bean producers in Guatemala and Honduras. The results showed that farmers who received market-oriented incentives had reduced bean losses by 6 percent in Guatemala and by 7 percent in Honduras compared with the control group. The results suggested that it could be more effective for governments to switch policies from simply providing input packages to promoting market-based incentives, and share information on standards and promote standards legislation and price premiums at wholesale markets and for agro-processors.

Impacts of market-based contractual arrangements with farmers in Guatemala and Honduras

Globally, initiatives have addressed food insecurity and the increasing pressure on available land that has followed from growing populations and changing diets. These policies, however, have been aimed mainly at increasing agricultural yields and productivity and are often cost- and time-intensive. They have not focused on reducing food losses, nor considered food loss reduction as a tool that can help meet growing food demand. Any interventions in food value chains will have three impacts: (1) improvements in food security and nutrition through increasing food availability (which addresses Sustainable Development Goal [SDG] 2: Zero hunger); (2) improvements in productivity and economic growth, as farmers will be able sell more produce in the markets (SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth); and (3) emissions reductions (SDG 13: Climate action) and improved efficiency in natural resource use, especially use of water and land (SDG 14: Life below water; SDG 15: Life on land).

Assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on the coffee value chain in Guatemala: Evidence from coffee growers in the Midwest and East

Coffee is a growth market. Current estimates indicate that global coffee production (in volume) has increased by more than 60% since the 1990s. Coffee is produced by around 25 million farmers, which are mainly smallholders in developing and least developed countries, and over 70% of the coffee produced is exported, resulting in about 20 billion US dollars annual foreign exchange earnings (ICO, 2020). COVID-19 represented a severe joint supply and demand shock to the global coffee sector, particularly during the first months after the start of the pandemic. As noted by Hernandez et al. (2020), the coffee industry experienced important disruptions downstream the value chain, including the functioning of key export infrastructure and international shipping, which combined with local currency devaluations and volatile coffee prices, which resulted in significant challenges for coffee growers, farm workers, and traders.

Latin America and the Caribbean: Food systems in times of the pandemic

The road to the WTO twelfth Ministerial Conference: A Latin American and Caribbean perspective

The context in which international food trade takes place has changed considerably since the last Ministerial Conference (MC11) in 2017. Significant progress has not been achieved in many import-ant issues that are still pending on the organization’s agenda. Moreover, geopolitical changes and the Covid-19 pandemic have drastically impacted the institutional priorities of countries and the WTO it-self. The global economy has substantially deteriorated over the past two years, with structural impacts in the areas of trade and food security, particularly for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The multilateral trading system and its main organization, the WTO, have come under attack and are being discredited. The possibility of advancing towards coordinated solutions to major global issues through multilateral cooperation seems unlikely. Countries have adopted a wide range of strategic decisions to respond to the effects of this situation on international trade and agriculture. Many have revised their trade policies to adjust them to different scenarios with respect to food security and agricultural trade flows. The surge in commodity prices and a fear of food shortages have led some governments to apply restrictive measures that limit or tax agricultural exports. Other measures adopted include direct market interventions through public stock holdings, special safeguard mechanisms, and state trading enterprises. The adoption of these measures has triggered new debates on their effectiveness in reducing food insecurity and propelling the development of fair and transparent food markets. Regulations such as sustainability standards, access restrictions or domestic support measures must be transparent and aligned with WTO principles to avoid discretionary applications and discriminatory practices. Information transparency is key to access and develop new markets, especially under growing environmental scrutiny. Effective market access is crucial, not only for the development of agro-exporting countries (which prioritize this issue on their development agendas) but also for importing countries, as a means of guaranteeing food security and connecting main suppliers with buyers in regions facing food shortages. The WTO dispute settlement mechanism has become a strategic asset for developing countries, enabling them to continue expanding their agricultural exports and strengthening their position in the market. However, the current state of paralysis of the WTO Appellate Body has recently affected the institution’s effectiveness in regulating and arbitrating conflicts in the area of food trade relations. Most importantly, the growth strategy of Latin American countries depends on the WTO and the legal order that it enforces; therefore, actively contributing to its modernization and prioritizing its success as part of their trade and foreign policies is of crucial importance.

Are Plurilaterals a promising trade liberalization modality?

After 50 years of success, multilateral trade liberalization, conducted under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is in a deadlock, as illustrated by the impasse in which the Doha Round is for almost 20 years. Many explanations have been advanced. Let us quote three of them. First, there are many trading partners involved in the negotiation and their interests are too heterogeneous, such that there is no outcome benefiting all parties (Bouët and Laborde, 2010). Second the welfare gains expected from a new round of multilateral trade liberalization are small compared to the internal redistributive effects that it may imply (Rodrik, 1994). Third, there is asymmetric information not only between policymakers and the producers they want to protect from income variation, but also between trade negotiators at WTO about the political influence of domestic producers in each country. This double informational asymmetry gives birth to informational rents and makes difficult the implementation of free trade (Bouët, Laborde and Martimort, 2020).

Some thoughts and proposals for a way forward

The WTO XII Ministerial Conference (MC12) will be a different and singular event for the organization and also for the participating member countries. It is an extraordinary opportunity to take a fresh look to trade matters, in extremely difficult and rapidly changing times, and move forward with new ideas and proposals.

Introduction [in The road to the WTO twelfth Ministerial Conference: A Latin American and Caribbean perspective]

In December 2017 the WTO Ministerial Conference was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They were difficult times both in terms of economic and political uncertainties. The global economy was faltering and there was growing dissatisfaction with globalization and the global trading regulatory system had already surfaced and affected the spirit and environment in which negotiations in the multilateral trading system took place. Consequently, it also affected the deliberations in the Conference and the possibilities to attain progress in the themes that where under consideration like, such as a plurilateral agreement on fisheries and an agreement on public food stockholdings.

Market access

Market Access is one of the most significant and challenging pillars in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture due to its magnitude and the impacts associated with a change in agricultural trade rules. Increasing Market Access continues to be a relevant topic for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a region which encompasses the world’s largest agri-food exporters as well as net-agri-food importing countries. While LAC produce about a seventh of global exports in agri-food products63, food and nutrition security remains a concern in several of its countries, with 14% of the population classifying as severely food insecure, 41% as moderately or severely food insecure and 49.8 million people being undernourished in 2020 (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, 2021). Negotiations on market access are key for both LAC net agrifood exporting and importing countries with the objective to grant access to the products of exporters and to ensure the supply and food security not only for LAC importers but at global scale.

New disciplines for domestic support

One of the hallmark accomplishments of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) was the inclusion of agriculture in a system of multilateral rules and disciplines, including disciplines governing domestic support. Under those provisions, domestic support was capped based on support levels in a historical base period and then reduced over the implementation period of the agreement32. The AoA also encouraged Members to reform agricultural support towards minimally production- and trade-distorting support by exempting those measures from reduction commitments according to criteria laid out in Annex 2 of the AoA (the Green Box).

WTO dispute settlement cases involving Latin American countries and the agreement on agriculture, 1995-2019

Latin America, as a lead exporter of agricultural products, has a significant interest in open global markets. The region’s agriculture trade surplus has increased to U$54 billion in 2016-2018 from US$12 billion in 1996-1998. Brazil and Argentina, the first and second top agricultural and food exporters in the region, rank third and tenth worldwide and lead world exports of soybeans, maize, vegetables oils, sugar, poultry and beef. Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and some Central American countries have also seen significant dynamism in their exports of fruits and vegetables (OECD-FAO, 2019).

Food products, the WTO dispute settlement system and trade remedies

One of the Uruguay Round’s more notable achievements was the establishment of the WTO Dispute Settlement System, considered as the “Jewel in the Crown” of the WTO. When the Uruguay Round negotiations were initiated in 1986, there was a growing consensus that the original GATT dispute settlement system was ineffective. Compliance was a key failing of the old system; GATT contracting countries either blocked or simply ignored the findings of panels. The GATT’s consensus rule meant any party—including the potential respondent in a trade dispute who might be accused of wrongdoing—could block not only rulings but even the initiation of an inquiry. Thus, third-party intermediation was often not possible to resolve trade frictions (Bown, 2019).

Promoting transparency on agricultural policies at the WTO: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean

Transparency is present across all three pillars of the WTO Agriculture negotiations, with many technical submissions and proposals by WTO members that either address transparency exclusively, or include related elements within the areas they cover91. The suggestions range from improving the implementation of the notification requirements established by the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), to creating new notification requirements or modifying the existing ones.

Public stockholdings, special safeguard mechanism and state trading enterprises: What’s food security got to do with them?

Food security has been invoked for a variety of trade interventions and in many trade negotiations This chapter focuses on three trade topics for which food security concerns have been mentioned as the rationale (or at least part of it) for their inclusion in the WTO negotiations use: public stockholdings (PSH), the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) and state trading enterprises (STEs).

MIRAGRODEP, an analytical model adapted to economic and trade reforms

The international community is facing considerable challenges today. To meet these challenges, governments, regional bodies, and international institutions must define and implement reforms that meet a triple requirement: inclusiveness, sustainability and resilience. Inclusiveness means the implementation of reforms that primarily benefit the most disadvantaged populations in terms of income, food security, and/or health status. Sustainability means the design of solutions that favor the fight against climate change and the respect of biodiversity. Resilience means finding out tools that enable economies and populations to resist external shocks (extreme climatic events, pandemics).

Impacts of agricultural producer support on climate and nutrition outcomes with special emphasis on Latin America and the Caribbean

Despite significant reforms over the past 25 years, the agricultural sector remains highly subsidized. Agricultural producer support is projected to reach almost USD 1.8 trillion in 2030 (FAO/UNDP/UNEP 2021). About 73 percent of this (USD 1.3 trillion) is projected to be in the form of border measures, which affect trade and domestic market prices. The remaining 27 percent (USD 475 billion) is projected to be in the form of fiscal subsidies to agricultural producers. About two thirds of the total producer support (USD 1.2 trillion) is estimated to support crop production while one third (USD 595 billion) is expected to go to livestock producers.

Measures taken in the context of the Covid-19 and discussed at the WTO Committee on agriculture

The purpose of this chapter is to take an inventory and to present the main content of some of the trade-related communications and declarations that WTO member countries submitted to the WTO Committee on Agriculture in 2020 and 2021 as response to the current pandemic.

Restrictions and export duties: A pending issue

Export barriers (or controls) can take a variety of forms -such as prohibitions, taxes, quotas or licenses, among others- and have been applied to industrial and agricultural products, both by developed and developing countries, while pursuing economic and non-economic goals. When both the Havana Charter - legal instrument intended to establish the International Trade Organization37- and the General Agreement on Customs Tariffs and Trade - GATT - were negotiated, measures of this type were not a major issue of concern.

Harmonization of sustainability standards under the WTO framework as the core to create an intersection of trade and environment mutually supportive

In the context of climate change the world faces growing environmental pressures described as planetary boundaries including air and water pollution, land degradation, natural resources depletion and extinctions of species among other environmental issues and, in particular, more frequently extreme weather-related events and natural disasters affecting negatively the human development.