Peru to support competitiveness of small and medium-scale farmers IDB loan for $25 million will increase productivity and exports Peru will boost the competitiveness of its small and medium-scale farmers to increase productivity and exports with the help of a $25 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The program aims to raise farmer’s productivity and agricultural exports through a set of agricultural policy reforms. One of the program’s objective is to consolidate good practices in the operational and environmental management of the competitiveness reward programAGROIDEAS, which will benefit over 43,000 farmers over the next three years, 42 percent of them women. The policy commitments for AGROIDEAS include: evaluation of program outcomes and progress using criteria that include yield and productivity targets, adoption of technologies value of sales, cost-effectiveness of technical assistance, producers’ co-financing levels, participation of women, and environmental sustainability. Over 10 percent increase in productivity gains are expected to be achieved under AGROIDEAS, which will also make use of approaches such as the development of clusters and agricultural value chains to increase competitiveness. Peru’s agricultural sector accounts for 25 percent of the nation’s total employment, about 7.5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), and 9 percent of total exports. The country’s annual GDP growth rate for the agricultural sector has exceeded 5 percent in recent years, and agricultural exports have increased from $642,9 million in 2000 to $4,777 million in 2011, according to figures from the National Agency for Tax Administration and the Ministry of Agriculture. The IDB loan has a bullet payment on April, 15 2019 with an interest rate based on LIBOR. The program will be carried out by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The loan is the final in a series of three operations to Peru to support policy reforms through a programmatic approach. The first disbursement of the initial loan in the series, which was made on July 7, 2009, for $20 million, initiated policy reforms promoted by the government. The second in June 2011 was for 25 million.
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 13:58:45 +0000
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