The document presents many factors that affect the agricultural sector in Latin America and the Caribbean, incluiding the climate of uncertainty by low international prices and high interest rates caused, as well as the cost of the region's stabilization and adjustment programs has been very high. Under such circumstances, public investment in agriculture declines, the cost of credit rises in inverse proportion to the availability of funds, any subsidies that existed dwindle, and fiscal pressure tends to build up. The document emphasizes that we must be aware that structural reforms represent a readjustment and redefinition of income distribution and of the political power of participants in the social process. Finally, and in the face of the difficulties which global adjustment programs impose on the agricultural sector, structural reforms will provide a means of restoring profitability and, in the last analysis, capability for growth, which will in turn guarantee the success of these programs. The capacity for growth in the agricultural sector, which in turn will ensure the success of the adjustment programs, depends on the implementation of structural reforms. These reforms can be supported by multilateral financing: a relatively new area, and one that lends itself to a fertile and mature dialogue in the framework of an adjustment. (MIBA)