Deep Roots

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potential that fully justifies recognition of and support for the

role of family farming in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Family farming plays an even more crucial role with regard

to food security, improvement of living conditions and poverty

reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in

rural areas. The strengthening of family farming may represent,

first, an increase in available food surplus, either by improving

production for self-consumption in the farms or by increas-

ing local or regional circulation of the surplus. Besides, the

improvement in feeding conditions may boost other dimen-

sions such as health, education and the environment, not to

mention the positive effects of improved food security and

nutrition on health and education. A less vulnerable and less

impoverished rural population can also make more sustainable

use of natural resources like water, soil and biodiversity.

Some challenges must be pointed out, which refer to the need

to improve both the assets and access to them, namely to:

• improve knowledge about the diversity and heterogeneity

of family farming in order to better understand the

potential of different social groups

• broaden the scope of action of public policies beyond the

focus on the agricultural segments, by means of support

for infrastructure and services that may encourage the

production of public goods

• encourage the participation of farmers and their

organizations in policy planning and formulation

• increase access to natural resources, especially to land and

water, but also to seeds and genetic resources

• expand financing programmes aimed at family farming

• support initiatives and actions aimed at youth

• develop public policies aimed at strengthening

women’s autonomy.

Beyond these challenges, Latin American and Caribbean family

farming faces strong pressure from agribusiness corporate

sectors interested in land acquisition, access to mineral reserves

and areas prone to commercial exploitation of services and

tourism. In some Latin American countries, for example, there

is increasing foreign demand for land purchasing, which has led

to episodes of land-grabbing that directly affect family farmers,

who end up selling their lands or surrendering under coercion.

Likewise, many family farmers and whole rural communities

have been affected by the harmful expansion of the mining

sector which affects productive lands, generating various

constraints. In addition, an increasing quest for commercial

exploitation of services and tourism has been observed, espe-

cially in the Caribbean region, limiting access to fishery sources

and other spaces for labour managed by family farmers.

Finally, family farming is facing the issue of markets. On one

hand, we observe the growing power of large agrifood corpo-

rations and their strategies for monopolizing markets and

marketing channels by means of a broad scheme of mergers and

acquisitions of companies in the agribusiness sector in Latin

America, leading to denationalization of capital in this segment.

The number of both downstream and upstream firms in the

agricultural food production chain has decreased in recent

years, and several studies have shown that the ongoing concen-

tration of food distribution in the super/hypermarkets generates

a squeeze that interferes in prices and competition mechanisms,

with strong impacts on family farmers. On the other hand, a

challenge emerges concerning the creation of new markets for

family farmers. Diverse initiatives have emerged and spread

out in this respect, many of them arising from public procure-

ment as in the case of food acquisition from family farmers

for supplying school feeding programmes, public stocks and

even social welfare policies such as food baskets for vulnerable

people and popular restaurants.

Public policies for family farming

The state and public policies represent a powerful mecha-

nism that can be mobilized in favour of family farmers. State

intervention can both guarantee anticyclical measures for

macroeconomic protection and create long-lasting mecha-

nisms such as funds and insurance against natural disasters,

price crises and even health problems. It will, surely, depend

on the social and political ability of family farmers to organize

and claim support for their goals and demands as well as on

the capacity of national governments to heed them.

Nevertheless, public policies aimed at family farming are

still limited in Latin America and the Caribbean. In many situ-

ations, family farmers are still seen as just another segment

amid a larger group of farmers, resulting in a lack of public

policies able to meet the specificities of this segment. This is

the case with respect to access to technologies and innova-

tions, for they generally continue to be conceived and designed

without taking into account the reality and the needs of small

family farmers. A notable example is the agricultural mecha-

nization that is often inadequate to the technical requirements

of small farmers and has prices that they cannot afford.

In view of the evident and recognized diversity of family

farming, it is reasonable to expect that public policies in this

area should take into account such heterogeneity. Therefore,

the set of actions, programmes and policies should be diversi-

fied, seeking to reach the specificities of each situation. There

is a guideline that may be applied for devising public policies

aimed at family farming. This is based, on one hand, on the

principle of capacity building, and on the other, on the mitiga-

tion of vulnerabilities. In short, good policies for family farming

are those that strengthen their livelihoods and are able to gener-

ate resilience.

It is useless to mention or rank what would be

the best or more appropriate policies for family farming, since

the answer to this will always depend on the local conditions

of the ecosystem and the characteristics of the family farmers.

However, there are at least two areas in which public poli-

cies for family farming have a particularly important role in the

current social and economic context. The first is access to technical

training and innovations. The rural areas that present amore accel-

erated development of family farming are also those that count on

the presence of organizations which were able to help farmers to

design projects, create collective synergies andmediate their access

to information. Therefore, public policies to support agricultural

extension remain fundamental. The second area is markets and

commercialization. In the context of agrifood globalization, it is

essential for family farmers to have access to protection mecha-

nisms against unfair competition. This does not mean protectionist

policies in relation to global markets, but rather public policies able

to guarantee food and nutritional security, environmental preser-

vation and actions to keep people in the rural space.

egional

erspectives