The Current Food Crisis in Latin America

Abstract

One of the most far-reaching studies of the current state of Latin American agriculture, The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America, was published in 1981 by Alain de Janvry. De Janvry, a French-born economist who has studied the Latin American agricultural situation for many years, examines the totality of that situation based on raw data for the region as a whole (generally up-to-date through 1974) and based on closer examination of selected individual countries. He concludes that Latin America faces a structural food crisis, characterized by production shortages and skewed consumption patterns, and that the situation is likely to worsen. The purpose of this study is to look at the food and hunger problems in Latin America by reviewing de Janvry's data and analysis as they relate to the food question, updating his figures where possible and filling gaps in them where apparent. By examining this, one of the most thorough studies of the question to date, we should be better able to identify the underlying causes of the food problem in Latin America, certainly a precondition for determining what can be done to alleviate it. Clearly, we have to look beyond national statistics that frequently hide serious nutritional deficiencies. We have to ask specific and probing questions in order to identify the underlying causes of the widespread hunger and undernourishment that we see in most Latin American countries. Is there an actual shortage of food due to an inability to produce, or is the problem due simply to widespread poverty, which leaves a large part of the population without the means to buy the food that they need? Is the displacement of the Latin