b'Can South America Becomean Ag Powerhousefor the World?Its possible, but stakeholders say doing so will require placing the common good above individual interests.Marc ZienkiewiczTHE WORLD FACESan unprecedented challenge, which is to make available 60% more food in the coming years to feed almost 10 billion people. South America stands poised to help do that but doing so will require a lot more than simply boosting production. That was the message during the open-ing sessions at the World Agri-Tech 2022 South America Summit, which took place June 28 and 29 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.The approximately 20 million farmers of Latin America and the Caribbean already produce enough food to double the population of Latin America measured in calories. This region today is responsible for 23% of global food exports. We can proudly say that were ahead of every other region in the world in terms of net agri-food exports, said Julio Berdegu, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) assistant director-general and regional repre-sentative for Latin America and the Caribbean.Those are not small achievements. We could feel comfortable in saying that we are doing OK, but were not doing OK. There are challenges. Its important to realize that.For Berdegu, the glass is half full, but also half empty. To begin with, agricul-tural productivity growth in the region has recently slowed down sharply after a period of strong growth in the first decade of the century, he said. And while Latin America produces a lot of food, the opportunities and benefits derived from that production are not broadly shared in Latin America and the Caribbean, he said.Almost 60 million people in this region go to bed chronically hungry, and that number is growing. It has been growing for the past six or seven years. Four in 10 of our fellow citizens are food insecure, and this number is also grow-ing. Almost one in four adults in this part of the world are obese. The age-old equation between food and health has broken down in Latin America and the Caribbean.Almost half of all the rural people in Latin America in the Caribbean live in poverty, he added, which makes it harder to move ahead to make South America a powerhouse of agricultural production.Why are we surprised to see that young people do not want to live in rural Latin America? We are creating the conditions that are saying to these young rural women and men, Get out as fast as you can.82/ SEEDWORLD.COMINTERNATIONAL EDITION 2023'