This content was published on 17 July 2022 – 16:42
Lima, Jul 17 (EFE) .- The Government of Peru announced this Sunday an extension of the national state of emergency in the agricultural and irrigation sector, which will come into force this Monday and will have a term of 167 days, to “avoid accentuating the situation of vulnerability to the 2022-2023 agricultural campaign”.
The measure was published this Sunday in the official newspaper El Peruano, where it is specified that this decision is made due to the adverse effects of covid-19, and the different external threats that affect the constant increase in fertilizer prices at the global level. that put at risk the normal development of agricultural activities and its value chain in the Andean country.
The president of Peru, Pedro Castillo, already declared this state of emergency on March 20 for 120 days, but the Executive has decided to extend it to help small agricultural producers and to protect the food security of the Peruvian population.
The decree published this Sunday explains that the development of agricultural activity in the country requires the use of inputs of national and imported origin, such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, seeds and even food for raising animals.
But the rise in the cost of importing these products generates a deterioration in the profitability of the 1.7 million producers dedicated to livestock activity that Peru has.
For example, the decree states that 75% of the hard yellow corn used in the country is imported, as is 100% of the soybean paste, used as livestock feed.
It also indicates that the increase in the price of inputs has increased between 15% and 25% in the total costs of milk production.
The rule adds that the war between Ukraine and Russia, and the isolation of the latter power, affects the international market for oil, wheat, corn and soybean oil, increasing its international price, which pushes food imports of the country to an uncertain future.
On the other hand, in order to face this same context of rising international prices, the Minister of Agrarian Development and Irrigation of Peru, Andrés Alencastre, assured this Saturday that the first batch of nitrogenous fertilizer (urea) acquired by the Government as a measure urgently, it will arrive in time for the 2022-2023 agricultural campaign, which begins in September.
“We are going to reach the urgency that is fertilization in the September and October period,” Alencastre said this Saturday, explaining that urea will only reach farmers who cultivate less than five hectares.
On May 18, the Government of Peru approved, through an emergency decree, the acquisition in the international market of nitrogenous fertilizer, for a value of up to 348 million soles (about 90 million dollars), which will be distributed in organizations of individual agricultural producers and producers, in response to the rise in prices of this product. EFE
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