Field Notes: December 2024

Latin America's food paradox, Chan Chan & new restaurants in NYC, LA and Peru.

A regular round-up of culinary news from around the Americas, and beyond. If you have any tips about restaurant or hotel openings, new culinary books, food media worth reading, plus events and happenings of every sort, drop me a line thenewworlder@gmail.com.

The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, home to the world’s largest lithium reserves. Photo: Nicholas Gill.

After talking about it for 25 years, the European Union and five Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia) finally reached a trade agreement on December 6. While it still needs to be ratified, what might it mean for the region’s agriculture?

As part of the deal, the European Union will reduce tariffs on agricultural products and other goods in the Mercosur countries, which means more exports crossing the Atlantic. Some might see this as a gateway for things like more Bolivian quinoa and Brazilian açaí to enter the EU, but there will be far more demand for the things that will wipe those artisan products out, such as beef, soy and corn.

What’s ironic is that South America already has the world’s largest farming surplus. It is producing more food than in its history, yet food insecurity has never been higher. “Call it the food paradox,” the writer John Otis wrote in Americas Quarterly. “Even as the region produces and exports more food than ever before, it faces enormous challenges feeding its own people.”