According to Jimmy Torres Sias, head of Sierra Exportadora Piura, an entity that is part of the Ministry of Agriculture, organic bananas will be one of the flagship products launched by Sierra Exportadora in August in Alto Piura.
The business plans for organic bananas that start in August, in addition to the coffee, cocoa, sugar cane, tare and trout. "We will focus on working the issue of organic bananas this semester," he said during a productive coordination meeting held with officials from Agroideas and Agrorural, decentralized public agencies in the same sector.
According to Torres Sias, the work on organic bananas will start with an initial average of 300 hectares, and it will benefit over 600 producers. Work will start in the area of Morropon, La Matanza, Morropon district, Buenos Aires, and in the Tambogrande-Morropon corridor, he said.
He added that, although there was already a private experience of organic bananas in the Alto Piura, Sierra Exportadora's idea was toexpand this crop in the area.
Production must continue
The official stated that, even though Sierra Exportadora was working in the planning of products developed in the mountains, the Ministry of Agriculture had the support of two major entities, Agroideas and Agrorural. The former is the financial arm for the business plans, economic agents and associations of producers, and the latter supports the issue of infrastructure.
The local chiefs of Agroideas, Agrorural, and Sierra Exportadora will get together to establish a standardized plan within the next three months. "Even though the Ministry of Agriculture's current priority is to prevent the phenomenon of El Niño, we have to organize ourselves to see what we do parallel to this issue because the production must go on," Torres said.
There is also a mandate from the head of the sector that states that Sierra Exportadora should develop a plan for commercial development of products wherever there is an infrastructure of Agrorural in the mountains.
Agroideas has been successful in supporting some products, such as bananas, mangoes and sugar cane. Most of these products have been approved on the coast, and one of the goals of the executive president of Sierra Exportadora, Alfonso Velasquez, and the head of Agriculture is that farmers in the mountains also have access to these funds so that there is true social inclusion.
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Sierra Exportadora's goal is to work in at least 24 business plans within Agroideas, in the remainder of this year; with products such as tare, milk, bananas, coffee, cocoa, beans and livestock.
Source: elregionalpiura.com.pe