La propaganda gubernamental y lobby de negocios que se hace pasar por prensa en Perú nos viene “informando” sesgadamente como siempre sobre la protesta de los cuzqueños por la concesión intempestiva del proyecto Siguas-Majes a pesar de los informes técnicos que alertan sobre el deficit hídrico que sufre la Provincia de Espinar. Si las condiciones de escasez de agua se siente hoy mismo imagínense como será de aqui 10 o 20 años cuando el calentamiento global agudize los problemas hídricos. Por supuesto nada de esto se menciona en Peru21 y El Chichamercio ocupados en satanizar cualquier protesta social y hacer artículos sin la más mínima investigación o balanceando las fuentes.
El agua que se proyecta captar es para proyectos agroindustriales en Arequipa, que como en Ica malpagan y abusan de sus trabajadores, no usan tanta mano de obra como la agricultura tradicional, no producen alimento local, no respetan ni los derechos laborales ni ambientales. Y las ganancias no se reinvierten en la zona.
source: The Guardian
For the last two decades the Washington consensus has prevailed. The idea that poor countries should switch from production for local consumption to food for export as a means to growth has been a key plank of aid policy for the international financial institutions. Generous loans have been made available to promote these new sectors, combined with structural adjustment programmes that give tax breaks to foreign investors, remove tariffs and open up poor countries’ agricultural markets to imports (often US/EU subsidised ones).
The big question is who does this actually help? Peruvian asparagus production has received multimillion dollar loans from the World Bank’s commercial lending arm, the IFC. Most of it has gone to large agro-exporters, who have received tens of millions of dollars each. World Bank projects are supposed to take account of any environmental impacts they might have. They seem to have failed. A coalition of NGOs has called for the UK’s Department for International Development to review its funding to the bank in part because of these sorts of failures over environmental issues and climate change.
The Ica river rises in the mountain region of Huancavelica, Peru’s most deprived region, where indigenous communities make a marginal living herding. Diverting water to the asparagus fields has disturbed the fragile balance of water supply and demand on which their survival depends. Plans to increase diversion will make it even harder for them. In the Ica Valley itself, small and medium-scale farmers neighbouring the industrial farms have already found their water supplies drying up and have been forced to sell up. Leer el post completo en The Guardian
Amazilia Alba
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