His concern about the irrigation season that is about to begin, expressed Álvaro Gatica Pérez, vice president of the Ñuble Farmers Association and director of Fedefruta, who analyzed on Radio La Discusión the difficult scenario that local agriculture faces, although he assured that producers remain optimistic.
Regarding the impact of the frontal systems in June and August, he assured that “we had two tremendously large events and in some sectors it was quite damaging, but in general in our area we have not had major problems. In some plantations yes, due to a problem of excess water.”
“We hope it will be a relatively good year,” he continued, “the problem is that we are all very scared about how spring will come, if we have a rainy spring it will be very complicated, and the other thing that is announced, which are temperatures above 40 degrees, which can affect us a lot, so let’s hope that’s not the case and I hope we get ahead this year, because I’m optimistic, I think that in cherries and blueberries it can be a better year than the previous ones.”
Asked about the authorities’ response to the need to rehabilitate canals and damaged irrigation infrastructure, the blueberry producer acknowledged that “it has been very slow, in fact, to this day we do not have the resources that the CNR provided, we had to apply them in a very simple way, but until the minute the resources do not arrive.”
Gatica noted that, “at the end of October we have to be watering, that is, we have a month left to be able to repair, so I think it will not be possible to do it, we will have to generate provisional solutions, ‘like a master joke’, to be able to save the year; but this should have arrived, the resources were offered, but they have not arrived. The problem is that, if we don’t have the intakes, we can’t irrigate.”
Absence of an agricultural policy
The union leader reaffirmed the need to have long-term agricultural policies that promote the development of the sector and the Ñuble region.
“We are an agricultural region, that is, today we depend largely on Ñuble for agriculture, we are the poorest region, so, I believe that different measures must come from the state that favor so that we can grow and develop, above all, the small and medium farmer. This has happened elsewhere. In Peru, for example, the State put water in the desert,” he stated.
Gatica described that, “with what we are having today, with very high interest rates, where we do not have preferential rates for farmers, things that exist worldwide. So, for farmers it is complicated, this year we had high water, that has made it impossible for us to sow, the sowing of chicory, beets, and wheat is behind schedule, there are people who are no longer going to sow.”
For this reason, he stated that “we should have clear policies on the part of the state, we are not asking for subsidies, we have never asked, but rather long-term policies, where we can have soft loans and we can emerge, above all, small and medium-sized businessmen, “They are the vast majority of Ñuble, we must help these people and with good policies, that is the only thing we ask for.”
The leader added that, “it doesn’t matter whether it is a left-wing, right-wing or center government, long-term policies are required and we have not had that with any government (…) in meetings with different Ministers of Agriculture, we proposed Why couldn’t something be done like what was done with Decree Law 701 with forestry activity, where 75% was subsidized, why couldn’t something be done with fruit growing for small and medium-sized farmers?
Gatica also pointed to the need to modernize regional infrastructure and promote public and private investments, and mentioned the delay in electrical transmission works as an urgent challenge, as well as the long wait for the completion of reservoir projects.
“More than 90% of the cherries harvested in Ñuble are going to be processed north, because we do not have an industry here, there is only one industry here, one that is not capable of processing more than 10%. Those companies should be here, we have to encourage that, and there we could get our cherries and other products here, not having to go to San Antonio with our fruits, when we are here next to the ports; but our cherry all goes to the north to be processed, that makes no sense, and that is what we have been saying for a long time, we have discussed this with different entities, with the ministers, we also discussed it with the governor, how encourage these investments from the private part with certain benefits so that they can settle here, for example, in a special economic zone, similar to the free zone, which is a very interesting issue,” he pointed out.
