Apr 22, 2016
By Fernanda Lopez
Small farmers in Latin America deal with knowledge and technology access barriers whenever they try to adapt their productive systems to climate change: irrigation, pest-resistant seed varieties, and best practices are sometimes unknown or out of reach of rural areas. In other cases, additional barriers are present, such as access to land and entry into high-value markets. For countries like Guatemala, these issues become particularly challenging: the country has 12% of its total agricultural area made of land holdings smaller than one hectare (the highest percentage in Latin America, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization). In addition, 51.5% of the country’s young and predominantly female population (66.5% of the population is younger than 30 years old and 51% are women, according to Guatemala’s National Institute of Statistics) still lives in rural areas and is mostly dedicated to agriculture.