The Minister of Agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela, together with the national director of INDAP, Santiago Rojas, announced this Wednesday an investment of $7,582 million aimed at promoting the sustainable production of traditional crops such as cereals, legumes and potatoes. The initiative will benefit 1,605 producers between the regions of Valparaíso and La Araucanía and is in line with the Government’s commitment to advance the country’s food sovereignty.
The announcement was made in the town of Yerbas Buenas, Maule Region, where $126 million was delivered to 63 Linares producers dedicated to the production of wheat, corn and rice.
The Minister of Agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela said that “this delivery of resources is an unprecedented program in the history of agriculture that is called annual crops and whose purpose is to support the cereal and potato sector because it is very important for the food security of Chile. (…); We cannot leave the farmers who have had this decline alone and we have rushed this program to the maximum and we are providing bonuses to support small farmers.”
The investment is divided into four categories: technical advice, inputs, services and project financing. The input incentive, for example, covers 70% of the gross cost of the required productive supplies, with a cap of $200,000 per hectare and up to 5 hectares per producer. The service incentive co-finances formal services provided by third parties, such as, for example, the use of agricultural machinery in the field, harvesting, laboratory analysis, among others. In this case there is also a limit of $200,000 per hectare and up to five hectares per user.
In relation to the investment item, this is additional financing for projects and the call for tender will begin in May. Added to all these categories is permanent specialized technical advice that farmers will have access to.
Historical figures
“Historical figures show a worrying decrease in the area planted with annual crops nationwide. In this sense, this program will improve production, for example, through access to better seeds; “It will promote the incorporation of more sustainable practices and provide support to obtain better market conditions for the national production of these crops,” indicated the national director of INDAP, Santiago Rojas.
The total program budget is divided into $6,495 million in property incentives and $1,086 in technical advice. At the regional level, the INDAP Traditional Crops Program considers an investment of $172 million for Valparaíso, $146 million for the Metropolitan Region, $2,094 million for O’Higgins, $2,898 million for Maule, $1,579 million for Ñuble, $205 million for Biobío and $221 million for La Araucanía.
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