Farmland has long been one of the most important sources of security across generations. Writing about China nearly a century ago, Pearl S. Buck noted in
The Good Earth, “If you will hold your land, you can live.” That holds true today. When farmers own land, they invest in it. When they don’t, they extract what they can today without thinking of tomorrow.
Just a few years ago, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of families in Latin America and the Caribbean did not know whether they would have enough food for the next day. The shutdown of economies, massive job losses, and the sharp rise in prices pushed food insecurity to levels not seen in decades.
In perspective, good news: world hunger is beginning to decline. The
State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 (SOFI 2025) reported a drop in the proportion of people suffering from hunger, from 8.5% in 2023 to 8.2% in 2024. Latin America and the Caribbean has played a pivotal role in this progress.
In a region where hunger has cast a persistent shadow for generations, from the debt crises of the 1980s through the volatility of the 1990s to the recent shock of COVID-19, an unexpected and powerful development is now emerging: Latin America and the Caribbean is making significant progress in the global fight against hunger.
This year’s Human Rights Day marks the 74th year since the United Nations adopted
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an international document that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all people. The right to food became a legal obligation for countries to promote and protect as part of
the economic, social and cultural rights in 1966.