Puntos del discurso inaugural del Representante Regional de FAO - Raúl Benítez

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Mr Sergio Garcia, Program Manager, Agriculture and Industry of CARICOM Secretariat
Mrs Florita Kentish, FAO Subregional Coordinator for the Caribbean
Government Delegates
Colleagues from International Organizations
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great honor to host, together with the CARICOM Secretariat, this workshop on Small
Scale Farming in the Caribbean.
In yesterday’s opening ceremony, I made reference to the important progress that the Latin
America and Caribbean region has made in reducing the number of people undernourished.
Indeed, over the past two decades, the proportion of undernourished in total population, in the
region as a whole, declined from 14.6% to 8.3%. In the Caribbean alone, this proportion went
down from 28.5% in the early nineties to 17.8% in 2010-2012.
There is no doubt that progress has been made. However, these figures are still unacceptable.
Many of the undernourished are small-scale farmers. Some people regard them as being
inefficient, and as being part of the poverty and food security problem.
For us, small-scale farmers are part of the solution to poverty and food security in several
countries.
Historically, smallholders have been key players in meeting food demand. But, with the
structural adjustment programs that most countries in the region followed, smallholders were
neglected in public policy, thus, they were unable to display their full productive potential.
Today, things have changed.

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That’s the feeling not only in the Latin American and Caribbean region, but worldwide. Proof
of this is the fact that the United Nations declared the year 2014 as the International Year of
Family Farming.
In 2050, the world population is expected to increase to 9 billion people, which will mean, at
least, a 60% growth in global demand for food. Small-scale farming, because of its current
technology and productivity gap, can significantly contribute to meet this growing food
demand.
Climate change already poses huge risks to agriculture. Small-scale farming, given its use of
native varieties, conservation and soil improvement practices, its lesser dependence on oil and
petroleum products and its practice of multi-culture and forestry systems, plays a fundamental
role in mitigating and adapting to climate change.
Small-scale farming encourages the conservation of plant and animal species that are endemic
to the region, and thus become a natural guardian of biodiversity
The fostering of small-scale farming can reduce import food dependency, and reduce
domestic food price volatility.
But above all, fostering small-scale farming is a wise strategy to fight hunger and poverty.
With this workshop, we conclude the first series of policy dialogs on small-scale and family
farming that we started in November last year. That month we discussed family farming in

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South America. In August this year we did the same with Central American countries. And
today, we are eager to listen and exchange experiences about small-scale farming in the
Caribbean.
I thank you very much for participating in this extremely relevant workshop.