| Sumario: | In Peru the agro-export boom has determined a major shift of large farmers
from traditional agro-industrial crops (coffee and cotton) to new agribusinesses
(asparagus, oranges, avocados, apples). These dynamics have left room for the small
farmers to enter the traditional agro-industrial sector, or into new niche markets as in
the case of native cotton. On the North coast of Peru the cultivation of the native and
naturally coloured cotton (Gossypium Barbadense spp. locally called algodón El País)
is part of the Moche indigenous culture (a local pre-Inca population). Since 1949
the Peruvian legal prohibition to produce native cotton, linked to the risk of genetic
contamination of the industrial white cotton cultivations, made the keeping of these
traditional varieties very difficult. Nevertheless the situation has totally changed since
2008 due to Regulation n° 29224 declaring native cotton as a genetic, ethnic and cultural
heritage of the country. This study analyses the economic feasibility of re-inserting the
native cotton as part of the agricultural production of 50 farmers on the North coast of
Peru, proposing a farm economic data analysis, scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis
based on OFAT (One Factor at A Time) methodology: the results attest that in all the
productive scenarios proposed (10%, 25% and 50% of the farm agricultural surface
growing native cotton) the average farm incomes are going to increase. Moreover the
sensitivity analysis attests that also in the worst conditions of a 10% decrease in the
native cotton price, the average farm incomes with native cotton are higher compared to
the business as usual scenario in all three productive scenarios proposed.
|
|---|
Biblioteca Digital de Vanguardia