In relation to nutritional aspects, the Americas present a picture of sharp contrast. The region has an exceptional abundance of natural resources, considerable wealth in agrobiodiversity, arable land and availability of water. These constitute major advantages for the future, and make the Americas the largest net food exporter in the world, and the largest producer of ecosystem services. Moreover, aquaculture is emerging as a major industry in a number of countries such as Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Ecuador.

However, malnutrition, food insecurity, obesity and other related diseases coexist to a greater or lesser degree throughout the region. Food insecurity in LAC went from 22.9% in 2014 to 31.7% in 2019, due to a sharp increase in South America, and over 100 million people cannot afford a healthy diet.

For the transformation to sustainable and healthy diets, the research agenda related to food choices must explore alternative ways of influencing consumer behaviour. LAC's great agrobiodiversity, and the potential of nutritious, but underutilized or neglected, indigenous crops represent a great opportunity for transformation towards sustainable systems, more balanced diets, and increased resource efficiency and resilience. High diversity in aquaculture in LAC provides wider opportunities for balanced diets.

The LAC region is not only a great producer of sustainable biomass, it has become one of the main actors in international markets due to important developments in its scientific-technological capacities, industrial infrastructure and bio energy generation. In biotechnology applications, the region has been one of the early leaders in the adoption of agricultural biotechnology (GM crops) and the emergence of a new generation of starts-ups in several countries has an impact on the regional bioeconomy landscape.

In the case of conservationist and regenerative agriculture, reduced tillage practices have been adopted in a wide diversity of production systems. There are also important initiatives directed to highlight the strategic character of soils.

Despite these important developments, the overall picture in the region is one of concern, as a majority of the countries in LAC, particularly the smaller ones, are on the sidelines. In terms of investments in agricultural science and technology, five countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico) account for more than 90% of the regional investment.

Moving forward: Strengthening policy in LAC for research and its uptake.

• Increasing investment levels is a common requirement for all countries, but beyond that, there is an urgent need for institutional structure and organizational approach better reflecting the new environment.
• The institutional framework for innovation and transfer of agricultural technology needs to evolve, to avoid a “silo institutional approaches”, to facilitate interaction between biological sciences and other areas of knowledge, and to strengthen the relationship between scientific research and local knowledge systems.
• Investment priorities: R&D priorities have been highly focused on solving production problems, improving resource management, and above all in a “short vision” of the agricultural and livestock sector. The new scenarios demand for a broader agenda, going beyond production to integrate issues related to sustainability, the entire supply chain value, quality, nutrition, energy production and industrial use of biomass.
• Dealing with the distributional effects of the new scenarios and public policies: innovation must be complemented by policies and actions specifically aimed at ensuring the equitable participation of all sectors involved, particularly those sectors of small-scale family agriculture with restrictions in terms of availability of resources and/or access to infrastructure or services.
• Improved international cooperation mechanism: for many countries, there are several limitations to access the benefits of new technologies. This calls for improved cooperation mechanisms aimed at pooling capacities and technology sharing.