This report provides information and analysis, both of the current situation and context of the agri-food sector and the outlook for 2013. This is a joint effort developed for a fourth consecutive year by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (eclac), the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (fao) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (iica). This year the special chapter is dedicated to the issue of land tenure in Latin America and the Caribbean. The chapter analyses recent trends in land policies, processes of structural change and challenges such as  securitization, which remains precarious in many countries of the region. The report recognizes that the global situation in recent years has complicated the process of policy formulation and decision-making, both for public officials and private entities. But it also provides an opportunity for the development of more sophisticated, comprehensive and long-term public policies, dealing with issues that transcend the purely agricultural. The current context is favourable for recovering the role of the state in the provision of public goods for agriculture, promoting the participation of stakeholders in the process of policy creation, and to encouraging greater public-private cooperation, especially in order to increase investment in research, development and innovation.