“The bank doesn’t pardon”: Climate crisis and economic loss

For the last three months, the lack of rain and extreme frosts have severely affected the plants and animals in Caylloma province, and farmers and herders are facing difficult times.

In the highlands, thousands of new-born alpacas have died of the extreme cold, and there is a lack of pasture because of the drought.

In the Colca Valley, 73,9 % of the potato harvest is ruined, and 65,3 % of the green peas and over half of the maize and beans are lost (according to numbers from the local office of the Agricultural Ministry in Caylloma).

Most of the farmers have taken up loans from micro-credit finance institutions to invest in seeds and fertilizers, and now they are left with no crops and a debt that has to be paid. “The bank doesn’t pardon” (el banco no perdona), the saying goes.

“The whole valley is in a crisis. We will feel it in 60 to 90 days” (Todo el valle estamos en crisis. En 60 o 90 días se va a sentir), the mayor of Lari district told me in an interview.

Yesterday, the 20 district mayors from Caylloma province travelled to the Peruvian capital Lima to present their demands to the central government. They demand that the province of Caylloma should be declared in a state of emergency because of the drought and the frost that have destroyed the mayor part of the crops. The total economic damage makes a total of 20 million soles (7,1 million USD), and they demand that the government cover this loss.

They also have other demands, like a agricultural insurance, and that they get back the money from the mining tax (canon minero) that has been cut, apparently because of the decreasing mineral prices on the world market.

This is a video-clip with a part of the interview that I did with the mayor of Lari, Guillermo Eloy Rojas García, in Lari on Saturday 15 March. It’s just roughly edited, in Spanish, and without subtexts yet. So I give you the explanation/translation here:

First, we see how he shows me the potato fields and explain that the potato plants are ruined, and the potatoes are tiny and deformed and cannot be eaten, sold or used as seeds. Then he shows some maize field down below and explains how some fields have been affected, while others are fine, because of the variations in microclimate in the area. The potatoes and maize are the most vulnerable plants, in addition to peas and beans, while the quinua and barley are more resistant.

Afterwards, we see the first part of a long interview in his office. He says that in Lari district, 50 – 60 % of the crops have suffered because of extreme cold, snow, but also extreme heat (up to 30 degrees Celsius) during the day. There has also been a lack of rain, but it is especially the frost that kills the plants. This affects the economy of the population; 98 % are farmers who cultivate potatoes, maize, beans, and peas and raise cattle. This frost is something unusual, it has never happened so drastically. We have had frosts before, but they were benign, mild, he says. Then we could make the plant react by irrigation or stimulation. But this time this has been impossible, because the frosts have been fulminant (fatal). The population is worried, people feel impotent, there are no remedy; ‘what do I do?’, people ask. And they all look to the municipality, but the municipality doesn’t have the resources to mitigate.

“So we have been obligated to unite with the other municipalities that have suffered from this frost, making force to present demands to the Ministries, the Regional Government and Presidency of the Ministers’ Council, that they give us some support to mitigate this. On Tuesday, we will travel to the capital Lima to make these demands in a formal way, and we hope that they will receive us. There should be some hope to be able to satisfy this vulnerable population, because these districts in Colca Valley live in poverty – we have overcome the extreme poverty, but still have poverty. Still, the basic needs of several families have not been satisfied. And another cause of this is also that there are no other jobs for them, so they all dedicate themselves to agricultural labour and this is their only income. I hope that this travel that we will make on Tuesday will be announced in the national news in the capital, and well, we hope for results.”

Here is a video made by the municipality of Caylloma, with an interview with the mayor of the province, Elmer Cáceres Llica (in Spanish):