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Exports, concentration of ownership and food security and counter-agrarian reform


Is there a relationship between country's food security, the concentration of ownership of agricultural land and exports?

Yes there is, and this is evident if we place ourselves in a perspective long-term temporary.

Currently there are approximately 1.8 million acres devoted to food production in Peru . Virtually all of this production is due to the small and medium agriculture. Peru the matter, to complete their food supply, mainly yellow maize (for poultry), wheat, oilseeds, for a total of around 1350 million U.S. dollars (2009).

By 2020 the population of Peru will have increased by 21%. The question is how to meet this increased demand for food, without increasing our dependence food?

There are only two ways, which should be complementary: increasing the agricultural frontier and / or increasing yields per hectare.

If yields are not increased, then the required amount of new land for food crop in 2010 will be proportional to population growth: 21%, or approximately 380 000 hectares. Where do these acres? One option is expanding the agricultural frontier on the coast, irrigating the land fallow (Olmos, Majes Chavimochic, etc.). But these new lands, a matter of policy, the constitution will neolatifundios, all of whom are turning their production for export. In the mountains there is no place to expand the agricultural frontier (rather than reduced). Is only the jungle, but at the expense of deforestation, ecological imbalance and release of carbon, which unfortunately is happening.

In order to increase the median income of agriculture and, above all, family farming is required, that is massive, a clear and sustained political will of governments at all levels. This implies a radical change of priorities and direction of resources: currently about three quarters of public investment in agriculture goes to great irrigation, in contrast to the tiny puny resources received by research institutions and technical extension.

The existing policy from the government of Fujimori to prioritize the formation of large estates for export goes diametrically against an adequate strategy to face the challenge of food safety in the years ahead, a strategy that would rely on the support those who produce food, agriculture and family median.