The pandemic between a conflict in family farming and agroecology: the Peruvian case

Nancy Pierina Benites Alfaro^[1]

The current health crisis is prompting a rethinking of local production systems, as well as their benefits or harm to the ecosystem and local societies. In recent years, for example, the concept of family farming has gained significant traction, referring to the 70% of global food suppliers. Definitions of family farming vary across countries, and the FAO recommends that specific work strategies be developed based on these definitions.

However, in countries with such diverse populations and ecosystems as Peru, these definitions can carry a high risk of generalizing policies that hinder the application of traditional technologies, which has historically led to the loss of ancestral knowledge closely associated with the immune system health of their populations. This situation is particularly relevant because it is a country where respiratory illnesses are the leading cause of death, a situation that will undoubtedly be exacerbated by the coronavirus.

The National Plan for Family Farming 2019-2020, approved in November 2019, states that family farming depends on two variables: the size of the family farm and its technological level. It explicitly states that technology is measured by the presence of irrigation and the use of certified seeds; that is, it prioritizes the provision of capital for infrastructure and the use of hybrid seeds, criteria completely disconnected from the management of traditional agriculture based on biological diversity in agroecosystems and the in-situ conservation of seeds.

While agroecological production systems, closely linked to traditional technologies, are promoted in this Plan, they have suffered a severe blow with Supreme Decree 002-2020-MINAGRI, approved this year. This decree stipulates that ecological and organic agriculture are synonymous and require the same level of procedures and inspection costs, despite the significant difference in scale between organic and ecological agriculture. The latter is more aligned with producers who have landholdings of less than a quarter of a hectare and require low levels of investment.

To date, there is no national demarcation defining the protection of agricultural biodiversity areas, despite Peru being a center of origin for various crops and livestock. While the designation of agrobiodiversity zones has been created, their management requires a series of bureaucratic procedures that do not guarantee a shift towards state-promoted intensive production systems, as these are private lands with no incentives for their conservation.

While one could say that there is a relationship between family farming and agroecology, this is not clear in Peruvian agricultural policies; even worse if the aim is to generate family farming oriented towards conventional or (at best) organic production systems where there is a high dependence on external inputs, which cannot be easily acquired given the state of emergency and the increase in prices of these inputs (fertilizers and fertilizers), particularly because there are currently temporary crops planted in the field.

The lack of storage and transport capacity also leads to thinking about local processing systems, particularly for potatoes.

This situation, however, allows us to reflect on the agricultural strategies to follow based on the use of local inputs, cost minimization, and the strengthening of short supply chains. All of this is promoted through agroecology.

^[1] Fellow of the first cohort of the Research and Training Program in Agroecology (CLACSO – Mcknight Foundation).