Comments to Workshop Participants and the Community of Quilcas

Delivered March 7, 2003, by Ron Brunk

“The first week of March as we traveled to and visited in the communities of Cañete, Mala, Herbay, and Santo Domingo on the coast and around Quilcas in the high Andes, I have experienced really wonderful hospitality.  I have learned of your efforts to maintain the indigenous varieties and thereby preserving the genetic base.  The whole world will thank you some day in the future.

I have been impressed and so interested in seeing the indigenous varieties of potatoes, maize, and oca and to learn that some communities have over 100 varieties of potatoes and of maize.  It was of great interest for me to see the cultivation on the coast of grapes, maracuyá, granadilla, and guanábana for the market.  It was of great benefit to see the improved practices in livestock production – the introduction of an improved breeding line of dairy cows and the dedicated production of cuyes (ed: guineapigs).

There are many similarities between Iowa small independent family farms like my own family farm and the farmers I have visited with here in Perú.  The difference is in size and methods only.

On my farm we produce much corn but we make no profit raising the corn because the costs to produce the corn equal the amount we receive when we sell the corn.  The government program pays each farmer a certain amount for each acre of corn we raise.  So our families live on this payment.  One can see that just increasing the size of farms is not the answer to the farmers’ problems.  Therefore farmers like myself have joined together in the Practical Farmers of Iowa farmer organization and are trying to produce crops that we can sell direct to the customer.  We have raised strawberries and squash to sell locally.  However last year, after selling squash in the local store for four weeks, on the fifth week the store no longer wanted my squash because they said they had plenty.  When I went into the store to look at the squash I found each one with a tag on it that said “product of Perú.”  Does this occur in reverse with maize in Peru?

I can see the possibility that you can cooperatively find ways to sell the special varieties of potatoes or fruits that you raise directly to the customers in Lima and other cities.  Farmers everywhere have similar problems.  I believe that small independent farmers can really understand other small independent farmers wherever in the world they may live and farm.  That is why the program like this promoted by the Universidad Nacional Agraria la Molina and Iowa State University is so important.”