Antolin Huascar: “The fall in fertilizer purchases indicates that there is no articulation in Midagri”

Antolin Huascar Floresformer president of the National Agrarian Confederation (NAC), in dialogue with RPP newspointed out that in the enddrop’third urea nitrogen fertilizer procurement process, means that Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (Midagri) has no opportunity compound interior.

“We are seeing a steady decline in the number of applications. There is a lack of articulationperhaps within the ministry or among the staff of the process (…) Unfortunately, there are many departments and tasks that they do not perform and then you have to restructure,” he said.

Faced with this, he pointed out that in 2019 the KPA and other agrarian organizations demanded “restructuring”Midagri, but it did not come true.

“By the date they just changed the namewhen it was necessary to rebuild to give dynamism to those who have to do the work. Agro Rural is responsible for tenders and they do not carry out the tasks that the minister has assigned them, or (…) they are companies that are deceiving the country,” he said.

Farmers on the losing side

In this sense, Huáscar observed that this situation affects the farmers just at the moment when they are at the gates of the “big campaign”.

“Now I find out that on Friday the controller intervenes and it delays, as we are already in a big campaign. And it hurts manufacturers, especially for rice and corn (…) And who is to blame? The president himself, or the minister, or his officials? Or those who bid surprise (and) damage the agricultural sector?”, held.

In this situation, the leader indicated that the farmer only needed to find a way to grow the crop.

“Here farmer works miracles to raise funds and continue to work, despite capricious loans from banks. If the farmer hadn’t done it, there would be no food in the market (…) We, as a small farmer, work for the local market,” he said.

“We don’t want to be given fertilizer”

Huascar noted that farmers are not looking for “give awayfertilizers, but are ready to buy them from the state “at the purchase price”.

“Intermediaries, large companies may have locked it in their warehouses. Rather, look for mechanisms to buy directly from the governmentto sell us, not give us away. Sell ​​at the cost they are buying and thus we can lower prices. speculators These are big companies that will always cause conflict among Peruvians,” he said.

In this sense, he believed that the delay in the purchase of fertilizers by the executive branch was due to the fact that it was considering “as a donation” but that farmers want to buy them. In addition, he believes that the use of alternative fertilizers can be promoted.

“I recommend the Contractor not only to look at urea (…), we have guano from the yellow potato island, for other products. We have other fertilizers. You should look for other alternatives, for this you should do public investment”, he pointed out.

Similarly, he elaborated that “regardless of whether there is payment or low-cost production, the farmer is going to continue working on the farm”and that a possible rise in food prices would also be the responsibility of “those who speculate in the market, middlemen who sit down and earn their wages.”