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Peru and Pisco 2
continued from part 1
By the nineteenth century, a scourge of phylloxera (plant
lice) eradicated many Peruvian vineyards which were replaced with
cotton and other fruit crops. "While the Argentine and Chilean
topographical boundaries of mountain, desert, sea and ice proved to
be natural palisades against the spread of the pest, not so in
Peru. Political and economic upheavals took their toll in the
twentieth century. Agrarian reforms in the 1970s abolished large
estates and created cooperatives. "The various forms of
cooperatives appeared to have had little impact on the creation of
employment opportunities in agriculture. As a consequence, over
half the rural population at the poorer end of the scale benefited
little, and the disparity of income distribution may have
increased." Today, water thirsty crops such as rice and sugar-
cane are taking slowly taking the place of grapes in the Ica
region. According to Salomon Diaz, president of the agro-
industrial committee of the exporters' association, "Peru's coast
has the great advantage that, because there's no rain, irrigation
is man-managed. With high technology methods -- drip or sprinkler
systems -- one could irrigate four times the area with the same
amount of water we're now expending on crops we'd do better to
import."
Even if farmers wanted to reinvest in their land, less than 10
percent actually hold the legal title to the land, a requirement
for collateral. Moreover, financing additional irrigation
equipment costs approximately 18 percent a year. Unlike Peruvian
farmers, Chilean farmers are allowed to import irrigation equipment
and discount the import tariff upon exporting the cash crop.
Water pollution is an enormous problem in all parts of Peru.
A new national environmental agency is being created as a result of
a $2 million donation by the Inter-American Development Agency.
"It is expected that a significant improvement in legal mechanisms
will be enforced by 1995." Peru's abysmal water conditions in
the Ica region are a result of domestic and industrial waste,
including mining pollution. The cholera epidemic spread quickly in
1991 due to the poor sanitary conditions.
While a trade war is not likely to break out, there is a
growing trade dispute between Peru and Chile over who had the right
to use the name pisco. "Peruvians hold a deep-seated national
pride in pisco, which they make from the cream of the grape harvest
and have been drinking at parties and rowdy peasant festivals for
more than 400 years." Chilean pisco has already found small
export markets in the United States and Europe. Peruvian exporters
are hampered by hyper-inflation and an unfavorable exchange rate.
"Peru is planning action under international patent agreements --
the same ones that guard copyrights over everything from computers
to pharmaceuticals - to keep the pisco name exclusively for
Peru."
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