Public policies supporting agroecology in Latin America: lessons and perspectives.

Latin America and the Caribbean are particularly interesting regions in which to analyse the emergence and development of alternative models of food production with the aim of addressing environmental, social, economic and public health problems. Since the 1960s, this region has been threatened by the excesses of conventional agriculture, based on the Green Revolution, whose agro-industrial model, intensive in chemicals and water, does not take into account environmental problems and produces food with pesticides that are potentially harmful to health. In addition, these systems are often established on land taken from indigenous and rural peoples. In this context, alternative models of agriculture and agri-food systems have been proposed, driven by producers, researchers, social movements and, in some countries, public authorities. These actors advocate for an agroecological transition supported by new public policies. This chapter examines the policies that favour the agroecological transition in Latin America and the Caribbean, analysing how they have emerged and what their challenges and opportunities are. It is based on a study carried out between 2016 and 2017 by a group of researchers from the Public Policies and Rural Development Network (PP-AL) in eight countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua), which followed a common analytical framework focused on five key components: the use of environmentally friendly agricultural concepts in policies, the trajectory of social movements and policies, the content of current policies, their effects at the sectoral or territorial level, and the main challenges and perspectives.