Deep Roots

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Image: Joseluis Alfredo Franco Castro

‘Sellers of Alpaca meat’, Peru (IYFF photo competition - South America regional winner)

units in almost all Latin American countries, and in many of

these to exceed 90 per cent of the total.

There is a great diversity of family farms in Latin America

and the Caribbean, which vary according to the forms of

access to land and its occupation and comprise heteroge-

neous farming styles and agrarian systems. Nevertheless,

perhaps the main characteristic of family farming diversity in

Latin America is neither its agrarian basis nor related to the

variability of agricultural production and livestock systems.

The ethnic and cultural diversity of rural populations and

the impacts of miscegenation resulting from the encounter of

pre-Columbian civilizations (Incas, Aztecs, Guaraní among

others) with the European settlers have eventually created

distinct ways of life, each with their specific form of socia-

bility and strategies of production and interaction with the

ecosystems that characterize peasants and family farmers in

Latin America.

Figures and statistics cannot depict this major heritage of

Latin American society, which is responsible for specific social

formations that sometimes coexist with and are integrated into

the social division of labour, and sometimes are excluded and

marginalized. Added to these main features – diversity and

heterogeneity of family farming in Latin America – there is

also inequality and vulnerability of this social group. A signifi-

cant part of the rural population still lives and reproduces

itself under poverty and insecurity conditions, sometimes

suffering violence and threats by groups that use the rural

space for non-agricultural interests.

Opportunities and challenges

Family farming is part of the rural landscape of Latin America

and the Caribbean and it carries the cultural and ethnic

identities that mark its social diversity. Family farming has

played a crucial role in the historical development of the

region, since family arrangements were decisive in shaping

the agrarian structure. Considering the massive and hegem-

onic presence of family farming in Latin American and

Caribbean societies, we may claim that the economic and

social development of these societies depend upon the stra-

tegic role ascribed to this sector. In some countries, notably

in Central America, family farming represents more than 90

per cent of rural agricultural establishments.

The International Year of Family Farming represents an unprec-

edented opportunity to affirm the importance of family farming in

rural development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Among the potentialities of family farming it is its funda-

mental role in food production. In many countries of Latin

America and the Caribbean, the agricultural sector remains

the main engine of economic development and the crucial

factor for macroeconomic stabilization. Even in large and

industrialized economies like Brazil, Mexico and Argentina,

the agricultural sector, within which family farming has signif-

icant weight, remains essential. In countries of intermediary

economies such as Chile, Colombia and Uruguay agriculture

also plays a central role. In the least industrialized countries,

family farming is the very basis on which a development strat-

egy could be built. So there is an economic and productive

egional

erspectives