Tab.; Sum. (En)

The first part of this chapter presents an overview of the trends in consumption, production, and trade of food and nonfood agricultural products in Latin America since 1960. I discuss the dynamics of agricultural growth and analyze diverse problems in a food security strategy for the region. This is followed by an attempt to characterize the two principal policy instruments governments use for agriculture: government expenditures and incentives policies. These two sets of policies are used extensively to influence agricultural performance, and they represent the revealed development strategies toward agriculture. I also present a quantitative description of the level and impact of government expenditure policies on agricultural growth in nine Latin American countries from 1950 to 1980. The last part of the chapter examines agricultural production incentive policies for selected South American countries from 1960 to 1983. I end my discussion with an examination of the long-run effects of incentives on the performance of agriculture in Argentina and Chile since 1960