The Food Production Support Company (EMAPA), now converted into a “contracting company for planting,” announced in May of this year that it was beginning to plant corn on the land that was taken from Ostreicher in Guarayos and expected to obtain 16,000 tons, of the almost 2 million that the country needs to not depend on transgenic smuggling, but that’s another story. (They saved us!)
Sitting on a tractor, and wearing a hat, the manager of the state food company, a specialist in “agriculture, planting, harvesting and whatever, in addition, of course food” (surely thanks to the position he was given without any merit), he only obtained his registration as a lawyer in May of this year, although that remains to be seen, because the magazine Bloomberg Línea verified that his name did not appear in the public registry of lawyers when it was investigated for the article: Bolivia: Feeding by a lawyer without registration who does not know about agriculture https://www.bloomberglinea.com/2022/07/20/bolivia-la-alimentacion-a-cargo-de-un-abogado-sin-registro-que-no-sabe-de-agro/ published in recent July. The signature responsible for the note is Nathalie Iriarte. Knowing the journalist, I can assure you that she knows what she wrote, but, it is a detail, anyway, who knows how much the “recent lawyer” knows about extensive planting, when He had previously been a Councilor in Sica Sica, a town in the Aroma province in La Paz (just over 30,000 inhabitants and with a vocation for livestock and agriculture, but not extensive) who went to study in La Paz, and was a parliamentarian for the MAS and, even a candidate for Governor of La Paz, but the “alchemy” of Arce Catacora seems to have made him an expert in such a delicate trade with just his appointment to the position. It does not matter, he is not and will not be the only one without any other merit than the political mandate that passes through a public company; that’s how this country is.
The fact is that they announced “with tractor and hat” including, I repeat, the planting and assured that the harvest was expected for October; Seeing the photographs that we managed to obtain in situ, it is clear that it is not going to be a great harvest (we attach the photographs and the document of the “brand new lawyer”, to the media that publishes this text).
But… the little word that changes everything, we have in our hands administrative resolutions from the Ministry of Productive Development and Plural Economy, of May and June 2022, referring to the contracting of 2 companies, one established in Beni, Trinidad, named Agrofarming Group SRL (does not record if it is a subsidiary of Agrofarming SL, Agriculture, Castellnou de Seana, Lleida 339, Spain) and another that does not seem to be related to the activity, since it is the company Construccion Tejeser, Cochabambina, but if a lawyer with no experience in food and agriculture is in this, why not hire a builder to plant corn in Santa Cruz, Guarayos province.
Let’s see part of the contracts:
In May, Agrofarming was contracted for Bs 28,792,150.00 to plant good quality corn on 5,000 hectares, quality: high-yield hybrid and non-transgenic in the first section of the province of the municipality of San Ignacio de Velasco, department of Santa Cruz, in the winter campaign.
In the case of “Construction Tejeser”, it is also contracted for the direct production of the corn grain in the Municipality of Ascención de Guarayos of the Department of Santa Cruz, for the sum of 4,424,938.00 with the delivery period of 170 days in “ up to 700 hectares”.
Neither of the 2 contracts has stipulated a minimum that justifies productivity or performance; In other words, there are no minimum expectations and that is the least that the person who hires can expect, because one ton is not the same as one and a half or two tons per hectare, especially if from what you see, you are investing in Guarayos. , for example as 908 dollars for each hectare, from which it follows that, for the business to be justified based on the investment, a minimum yield of 2.9 tons must be achieved to cover costs.
There are other details that must be answered by EMAPA and by experts, I confess that I have received a lot of data since I showed, in the form of a question/complaint, why what is done is done; the idea was that EMAPA was going to buy from the producers, then that it was going to plant directly and now it turns out that it contracts non-local companies, finances their planting, does not establish minimum yields and one must ask: what is it for EMAPA a good performance? In winter, how much is a good return? Or is it enough that it is shown that it is sown? And this is asked because, in the case of private companies, large, medium or small, each one assumes their risk and if they lose, they take responsibility, something that in the case of contracts establishes that: “In relation to the expectations of production and productivity of corn grain, the COMPANY contracted for the corn grain production service must meet the expectations of the EMAPA Food Production Support Company, applying adequate production and good performance in tons per hectare” (it is read in the PRODUCTION AND PRODUCTIVITY section) but it does not specify what the contracting party’s expectations are, especially if he makes them plant at a time not suitable for such a task because they are at the wrong time.
We are enclosing the contracts and photographs taken on July 21 of the fields as support for what we refer to; The intention is that EMAPA or the minister, who is determined to ensure that there was no transgenic grain in EMAPA’s silos when many analyzes have been seen carried out outside more than one collection center that do show that there is transgenic corn, but this Thus, “the official truth” does not match the truth of the street and the highways, so that it is a pointless debate for those who insist on not approving genetically improved and transgenic corn simply because they oppose the arrival of modernity, as do the countries around us and, if one doesn’t want to, two can’t.
It is not known how it will go, surely there will be, again, an official truth, although, without grain on the farms… and they will try to replicate what has been done… benefiting someone, it will not be the first time or the last.