Two climatic events recorded last year – with intense rains, river overflows and floods – affected and caused serious damage to peasant family agriculture in the O’Higgins region and the south-central area of the country. Given the magnitude of the losses, the government, through the Undersecretariat of Agriculture and INDAP, provided considerable resources to support the affected farmers.
One of this aid corresponded to the productive rehabilitation bonus, which a few days ago INDAP finished delivering to producers affected by the climatic event in the month of August. In the region, 773 victims in June and 2,270 victims in August received this aid – all INDAP users – for a total amount of 7.54 million pesos.
Meanwhile, the Seremi de Agricultura provided this important support – bonuses of an amount of 1 to 5 million depending on the damage suffered by each producer – to 2,150 affected people, which meant an investment of 5,150 million pesos, which added to the of INDAP amounts to an amount greater than 12 billion pesos.
Upon receiving this aid, one of the benefited farmers gave her testimony. “It was a nightmare. The water flooded the chicken coop and the thousand laying birds I had drowned,” Isabel López Gálvez (31 years old), born and raised in the La Vega sector, in the commune of Lolol, still sadly recalls. “My dad,” she added, “is 74 years old and she said something like this had never happened before. Only on the third day were we able to enter the chicken coop; “It was terrible to see my dead birds.” Despite everything, she decided to start over; She asked for a loan and bought birds. She received with relief and joy a bonus of 5 million pesos that she used to expand the chicken coop and purchase cages for her birds.
The productive rehabilitation bonds may be used for different investments depending on the productive and commercial situation of each user, focusing mainly on the acquisition of inputs (seeds, plants, forage, fertilizers), infrastructure (greenhouses, fences, warehouses, warehouses), equipment (motor cultivators, tractors, chainsaws, brush cutters) and irrigation (ponds, tillers, photovoltaic systems, water accumulators).
The Seremi of Agriculture, Cristian Silva, indicated that the productive rehabilitation bonuses were added to the early aid received by those affected, complying with the four lines of work committed by the Government: delivery of animal feed in a timely manner, rehabilitation of infrastructure damaged irrigation system, extension of credits and productive rehabilitation.
For his part, the regional director of INDAP, Braulio Moreno, highlighted the urgency with which action was taken to arrive quickly, first with early aid, for example, bags of alfalfa for the animals of 718 small farmers, poultry feed for 114 users and economic incentives for 97 beekeepers. He added that “last year, a few days after the floods occurred that affected thousands of families in the region and south-central zone of the country, INDAP and the Ministry of Agriculture of which we are a part initiated a Recovery Plan with the purpose of “promote the productive rehabilitation of affected farmers.”
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