Improving Agricultural Productivity and Market Efficiency in Latin America and the Caribbean : How ICTs Can Make a Difference?

Agricultural growth rates in the Latin
America and the Caribbean (LAC) region have been much slower
than the rest of the developing world. In the regions of
East Asia, South Asia and Middle East and North Africa, the
annual growth of agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
in 1980-2004 exceeded 3 percent, while growth in Sub-
Saharan Africa averaged almost 3 percent. This paper
attempts to present an overview of the agricultural sector
in LAC, discuss its distinctive features, and the potential
role of Information and Communication Technology's
(ICTs) in improving agricultural productivity and market
efficiency in this region. The discussion in this paper will
refer to the evidence provided by studies that evaluate the
impact of ICTs interventions. While the emphasis will be put
on the studies that evaluate interventions in the LAC
region, there will also be references to studies in other
developing economies whenever these are pertinent to the LAC
context. The commercialization of agricultural products has
suffered important transformations in recent decades, posing
big challenges for farmers in the LAC region. Finally, the
adoption of agricultural technologies will also be
constrained by insecure land rights. Investing in
technologies with long-run returns will not be attractive if
farmers are uncertain about their property rights in the
future (Jack, 2011). This is certainly an issue in several
countries in LAC, where land conflicts, expropriation and de
facto ownership are common.