Peruvian farmers do not stop

Fao News - 23/04/2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has stopped many businesses and closed most production, but this isn’t true for the farmers and food producers who need to keep working so that the world can continue to eat. Their vital contribution to the pandemic response cannot be overlooked. 

In this crisis, eating healthy with fresh fruits and vegetables is even more important and for this we rely on the farmers worldwide who are continuing to harvest and produce food for us. They are our Food Heroes, working despite the risks of the virus, to bring us the food on which we depend.

Luis Alberto Sinche is exactly that, a food hero and one of the many farmers who is working daily to ensure that his compatriots have healthy and nutritious food despite the COVID-19 pandemic. His agro-ecological farm – located in Mariscal Castilla in central Perú– specializes in bananas, which he plants next to his avocado and coffee trees. 

Mariscal Castilla is a small town in the jungle side of the central Andes, 350 kilometres from the country’s capital, Lima. Nonetheless, it has been hit by the pandemic. Farmers now need to obtain special permits to leave their homes and must cross several road controls to bring their crops into town. Even so, Luis continues to harvest his bananas, coffee beans and avocados to sell to nearby municipalities.

“We are complying with all measures adopted by the government. We don’t go out in groups. We only leave our homes to work on the farm; we respect the curfew,” describes Luis.

As a smallholder farmer whose livelihood depends on his harvest, Luis must also keep working in order to sustain his family. He has three daughters and a son. The youngest of his daughters is still attending university, and the fruits from his banana trees pay, not just for food and healthcare for his entire familiy, but also for her studies.