According to President Alan García, Peru is not an agricultural country, "but" essentially mining ". [1] Why? According to the president, for three reasons: because the amount of farmland per capita is low, lower than in Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina [2] ; because for food security ("idea that no longer serves in the world," he says) more important for domestic food production is to have resources to import food, as does Japan, thirdly, because in the history of the country's indigenous peasant communities were confined to the poorest lands.
Some clarifications are relevant.
First, it would be desirable that Peru was characterized not by natural resources he owns, but for excellence in transforming them. So do the developed economies, adding value to raw materials. The problem of Peru throughout its history that has continued until today as a primary basic economics, with little development of transformational capabilities, with incipient industry and poor education system (base for the formation of human capital to economy processing). President Garcia thinks like a nineteenth-century ruler.
Second, if we enter a presidential logic Peru characterize the economic importance of its resources, the contribution of agriculture to gross domestic product is similar to mine, with three major differences: (1) agriculture provides direct employment to nearly a third of the country's workers, while mining does to one percent, (2) agriculture is the backbone of the economy in most regions, while mining tends to have characteristics of location, (3) agricultural activity, being conducted by hundreds of thousands of families, decentralized source of income, while huge mining income focus basically a few large companies.
Third, give it an agriculture secundón a pilgrim, arguing that "security Food is an idea that no longer serves in the world "and that gas can be redeemed for food, is not only against common sense, but in direct opposition to global concerns about the food problem, particularly since 2008, and which echo the multilateral agencies such as FAO and even the World Bank.
not without reason the president, however, when he says that communities in the story were confined to the poorest lands. He himself is dealing with this unfortunate tradition continue!
[1] Entrevista al presidente García publicada como suplemento especial del diario Expreso el lunes 6 de setiembre. De lectura obligada.
[2] Según información de la FAO, la disponibilidad de tierras agrícolas por habitante es solo algo mayor en Ecuador que en el Perú, y bastante menor en Colombia.
0 comments:
Post a Comment