91������̳

Farmers in Piura, Peru’s northernmost region, 20 tonnes of limes outside the factories of Limones Piuranos and Agromar Industrial on January 29, in protest at their treatment at the hands of buyers and the lack of government support for farmers.

Limones Piuranos and Agromar Industrial are part of an oligopoly of three companies in the Piura region that collude to set the prices at which they buy limes from producers — just last month alone, the companies lowered the price of limes four times. Farmers ($340) per tonne, but now only get  S/300 ($130).

José Marchena, president of the Lime Technical Board, prices do not even cover the cost of the harvest: “The prices they pay are unfair.”

The companies wield considerable purchasing power to buy limes in large quantities and process them into products — oil, peel and juice — that can be stored for considerably longer than fresh limes. This allows them to manipulate supply, manufacture shortages and stockpile products in case of actual shortages, which guarantees their profits.

Farmers, who do not have the economic means to distribute or elaborate their produce to compete with the large companies and agro-exporters, face little choice but to sell their limes at unfair prices.

Water crisis

Moreover, farmers in Piura are still reeling from the region’s worst water crisis last year, which caused huge crop losses due to insufficient water for irrigation. Some farmers reported losing of their crops, including rice, beans, corn and banana.

The crop failures left many farmers in crippling debt from the loans taken out to invest in agricultural production.

Many parts of Piura city did not have running water for nearly two months last year, and are still experiencing chronic shortages, which puts at least 630,000 people at risk.

Large agribusiness and industrial companies played a significant role in causing and exacerbating the crisis through their control of the region’s water.

Although 93% (20,382 licences) of all water licences granted are for agricultural use and just 0.3% (65) for industrial use, the for both uses is the same. In other words, the Peruvian government — through the National Water Authority — has granted just a few companies permission for highly water-intensive activities.

Miski Mayo Mining Company, a subsidiary of the US-based The Mosaic Company, has a licence to use about 45.4 billion litres per year for extracting and processing phosphate from its open-cut mine in the Sechura Desert. Apart from the repercussions of obscene water use, pollution from the mine and transportation of phosphate has and impacted the local fishing and agricultural industries.

Agribusiness

In the agricultural sector, a handful of agribusiness companies have almost free reign over much of the region’s water.

Piura city’s annual water demand is about . Yet, AgroAurora holds 61 licences to use 168 billion litres per year, predominantly to produce and process sugarcane. AgroAurora is a subsidiary of Grupo Gloria, a Peruvian conglomerate that has the dairy market.

At the height of Piura’s water crisis, farmers resorted to on the Chira River — which diverts huge quantities of water to its own plantations — in November, due to it causing water shortages downstream.

The same month, about 500 farmers in the Piura region to protest the government’s mismanagement of water and failure to respond to the crisis.

For years, local and federal governments have known about the worsening drought and water scarcity in the region, but refused to take action to ameliorate the risk or support local communities.

The National Meteorology and Hydrology Service’s Piura department the government months before the crisis, raising the alarm over water deficits in the Poechos and San Lorenzo reservoirs.

The Poechos reservoir, along the Chira River, is a crucial water source for farmers — in the Piura region use water from the reservoir.

Despite this, the government entity responsible for managing the reservoir failed to upgrade necessary infrastructure and clear that has greatly reduced its storage capacity.

More concerningly, the government has granted mining concessions covering to companies seeking to exploit the mineral-rich sediment.

Disregard

The Peruvian government has continually shown a disregard for the farmers whose livelihoods are at the mercy of predatory companies and fluctuating prices.

In the Lambayeque region, — such as low export prices and climatic changes affecting fruiting patterns — resulted in an oversupply of mangoes from the most recent harvest.

Without the means to transport large quantities of produce, farmers were left with no choice but to bury tonnes of mangoes to avoid attracting fruit flies and other pests. Farmers in the Lambayeque region lost an estimated , with some losing up to .

Instead of supporting farmers to find markets for the mangoes, or at the very least transport them to communities to be consumed, agricultural minister Ángel Manero’s solution was to simply for the next three years.

Farmers Manero’s comments, and said that the government should act against the predatory corporations and help farmers distribute their products. 

This is just one example of the absurdity of food production and supply chains under capitalism, where an abundance of food is produced but wasted, while billions live in extreme food insecurity.

In Peru, the highly concentrated food industry and lack of infrastructure for farmers to distribute or process their own produce means they are left with no choice but to sell their harvest at the unfair prices set by food companies and exporters.

Peru has one of the most concentrated markets in Latin America — a handful of corporations control the food, beverage, pharmaceutical and banking industries. of the food market, with extraordinary power to fix prices, manipulate supply and further consolidate control over certain industries.

Grupo Gloria paid small-scale dairy farmers (58¢) per litre of fresh milk in 2023, but production costs for the farmers were about S/1.76 (75¢). Due to Gloria’s monopoly — it buys of the country’s fresh milk — many farmers have no choice but to sell their milk at unsustainable prices, attempt to re-negotiate a small price increase or simply leave the industry.

Gloria processes the milk, adulterating it with ingredients to form a product of much than regular milk, and sells it for a significant profit margin. For example, Gloria sold a 395g can of reconstituted milk — made by adding water to powdered milk — for ($1.79) in 2023, more than triple what it paid farmers for a litre of milk.

Grupo Gloria was recently fined in Colombia for using in its milk, and is currently fighting in Peru’s constitutional court against a law that mandates higher quality whole milk production.