By Eduardo Zegarra
year that ends has been a difficult year for all Peruvians. After several years of growth above 5% or 9% in 2008, this year we will finish in the best without any growth. The external crisis in Peru has beaten strong as one would expect of an economy rather open and exposed to falling commodity prices. Peruvian agriculture has not been immune to this crisis, and felt with particular intensity falling prices and shrinking the little credit he had received, and in particular, has continued to suffer from the lack of coherent and integrated by the second government of Alan García.
One of the sectors most affected by the external crisis was that of the herders , which saw the collapse of the fiber prices to ridiculous levels earlier this year. The oligopolistic domestic industry did little to protect its suppliers, among the poorest in the country, and neither the national government or regional governments were able to articulate effective measures to prevent the collapse of the incomes of thousands of families alpaca. It is very likely that this segment of the population extremely vulnerable high-Andes of Peru, has had significant increases in rates of poverty and extreme poverty this year.
Commercial producers were also affected. One of the most dramatic cases was cotton, which had a drop in plantings of 80.000 to 30.000 hectares just one year. Profitability of cotton without the bulk of farmers north coast, for example because they were directed to plant rice massively, creating an oversupply that grain prices collapsed. Overall, despite being a year with few weather problems, the 2009 has ended up being a very bad year for most local farmers. Obviously
agropexportador large enterprise sector has also been affected with falls of up to 30% in the value of exports oriented to both USA and the European Union. This has led to falling employment in the agroindustrial sector, and a context where workers in this sector and have serious difficulties because of the bad practices of companies that do not recognize their basic labor rights. It has also been a difficult year for thousands of workers in the coastal agro-export companies that saw a more precarious their jobs.
This difficult scene was not properly confronted by the two ministers of agriculture that we had this year. In the case of Carlos Leyton, which was just beginning to organize your team and define clearer policies for the sector, the problem was that the learning process was very long for the rhythms of reality, and his departure in mid-year did not allow significant changes in the agricultural sector with serious structural problems. His successor, Adolfo De Cordova, a militant APRA and has been involved in promoting the controversial Executive Groups ordered by the President of the Republic on July 28, and try to moderate the roundtables the Amazon (still in process), but with little capacity to address the multiple and complex problems of a sector like this.
In a brief review of 2009, with agriculture still no coherent and stable. MINAG does not adequately or adverse situations like the crisis in prices and jobs this year, or structural problems such as lack of credit, technology and infrastructure. To close with a flourish, the MEF withdrew from the Republican budget the Census of Agriculture that was to take place in 2010. Now there can be no census until after 2011, and will continue without a basic tool to design and implement better policies for our two million farmers.
One of the sectors most affected by the external crisis was that of the herders , which saw the collapse of the fiber prices to ridiculous levels earlier this year. The oligopolistic domestic industry did little to protect its suppliers, among the poorest in the country, and neither the national government or regional governments were able to articulate effective measures to prevent the collapse of the incomes of thousands of families alpaca. It is very likely that this segment of the population extremely vulnerable high-Andes of Peru, has had significant increases in rates of poverty and extreme poverty this year.
Commercial producers were also affected. One of the most dramatic cases was cotton, which had a drop in plantings of 80.000 to 30.000 hectares just one year. Profitability of cotton without the bulk of farmers north coast, for example because they were directed to plant rice massively, creating an oversupply that grain prices collapsed. Overall, despite being a year with few weather problems, the 2009 has ended up being a very bad year for most local farmers. Obviously
agropexportador large enterprise sector has also been affected with falls of up to 30% in the value of exports oriented to both USA and the European Union. This has led to falling employment in the agroindustrial sector, and a context where workers in this sector and have serious difficulties because of the bad practices of companies that do not recognize their basic labor rights. It has also been a difficult year for thousands of workers in the coastal agro-export companies that saw a more precarious their jobs.
This difficult scene was not properly confronted by the two ministers of agriculture that we had this year. In the case of Carlos Leyton, which was just beginning to organize your team and define clearer policies for the sector, the problem was that the learning process was very long for the rhythms of reality, and his departure in mid-year did not allow significant changes in the agricultural sector with serious structural problems. His successor, Adolfo De Cordova, a militant APRA and has been involved in promoting the controversial Executive Groups ordered by the President of the Republic on July 28, and try to moderate the roundtables the Amazon (still in process), but with little capacity to address the multiple and complex problems of a sector like this.
In a brief review of 2009, with agriculture still no coherent and stable. MINAG does not adequately or adverse situations like the crisis in prices and jobs this year, or structural problems such as lack of credit, technology and infrastructure. To close with a flourish, the MEF withdrew from the Republican budget the Census of Agriculture that was to take place in 2010. Now there can be no census until after 2011, and will continue without a basic tool to design and implement better policies for our two million farmers.
