The world needs more food - and Latin America is the place to invest

Right now, the market is urgently trying to tell us something. In fact it’s been trying to tell us something for the last few years. In the last decade or so we’ve seen regular bouts of record-busting food prices. This is the market’s way of warning us that our supply of the stuff is running low. And as the global population grows and also becomes wealthier, demand for food will only keep rising. Clearly, rising prices are bad news for consumers, and particularly for the world’s poor. But these price spikes aren’t entirely bad. In the long run, higher prices encourage farmers and food processors around the world to raise food production. In turn, that’s going to mean a lot more money will be invested in boosting farm productivity. One region in particular looks likely to capture the lion’s share of the extra investment – Latin America.