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Peru's cash crop, asparagus is bleeding key region dry

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Peru's cash crop, asparagus is bleeding key region dry

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Peru has recently become the world’s number one exporter of asparagus, sending the green vegetable to places in Europe and the United States.

The boom there has pumped a lot of money into the economy, but it’s also pumped out a lot of water.

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Peru has recently become the world's number one exporter of asparagus, sending the green vegetable to places in Europe and the United States.

Listen to the Story.

The boom there has pumped a lot of money into the economy, but it's also pumped out a lot of water.

In Ica, a small, modest city near the Peruvian coast, the city's downtown plaza is hopping. That bustle is largely due to asparagus.

Ica is Peru's asparagus capital. The overseas demand for the long green spears has turned the place into a boomtown.

Locals say unemployment is near zero; poverty has been cut in half. There are previously unheard of amenities in the city.

"There are now movie theaters as of only four or five years ago," said Cecilia Blume. "And another thing that's super important to me is the social revolution. There isn't childhood malnutrition. Because in Ica, there's work now for women - in agricultural packing."

Blume grew up here and now runs a consulting company that works with asparagus exporters. And she and others in the business chalk almost all of this progress up to asparagus. But the picture isn't totally rosy.

Manuel Checa drives up to the top of a sand dune high above the Ica Valley. Checa is part-owner of an agro-export group called Athos. They grow asparagus and pomegranates on about 1,200 acres of land.

He stopped the car and pointed to some of the blocks of green that stretch out below.

"This asparagus is 17 years old," Checa said, "and it has produced very well. But now, we've killed 20 percent of our asparagus, and this year we're killing 20 percent more."

Checa's company is pulling back from asparagus, after two decades of growing more and more of it.

"It's causing a water problem," he said. "We have to change crops."

Asparagus is a thirsty crop. And this part of Peru, along the coast, is basically a desert. The climate is great for farming, but the only water here comes when rains high up in the Andes wash through on their way to the sea.

That feeds local rivers and replenishes underground aquifers. While there's always been agriculture along these rivers, it's never been like there is today.

"The agro-exporters starting from 1995 intensively were overdrafting the aquifer, pumping water up and out," said David Bayer, a local water activist who first came to Peru in 1964.

He said the Peruvian government, with the support of the U.S. and the World Bank, pushed asparagus cultivation for export. Companies were allowed to irrigate their crops with water pumped up from the aquifer, for only the cost of building and operating wells. Basically, they got free water.

"And they also took over the equivalent, in the case of the Ica Valley, the equivalent of virtually 40 percent, 45 percent of the land," Bayer said.

Over time, all that irrigation has caused the aquifer to drop lower and lower. That's made it tough going for some bigger growers like Athos. And it's become even tougher for small-scale farmers.

Dominga Rosario owns a patch of land in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Ica. She's one of thousands of local residents here who farm mostly to feed their families.

She points out her corn, mango, avocado. She'll get a decent crop, Rosario said, but "you have to irrigate more. You have to invest more."

That's because as the aquifer has dropped, the soil above it has become drier. But irrigation can be expensive, especially when farmers have to keep digging deeper and deeper wells. Some can't afford it and have abandoned their crops. The city of Ica's municipal drinking water supply could even be at risk.

"I think there needs to be a solution as soon as possible," Rosario said. "Because these companies, they're preying on the aquifer. And when the aquifer dries up, our future will be uncertain."

The situation has gotten so dire that it's set off a scramble for solutions. For some, the answer to the water shortage is simple: just get more water.

Alfredo Sotil, who manages a commission that represents big agro-exporters, said in the rainy season, as much as half the water running off the mountains flows into the sea. He and his colleagues want to capture that runoff behind new dams.

"We're interested in taking water and transferring it here, to continue generating this development," Sotil said.

The dams could have the added benefit of generating electricity. But huge dams and water diversions are expensive, and they can cause their own environmental problems. That's why others here are focusing not on getting more water but on using less.

Miguel Betín grows asparagus and pomegranates on a farm close to the Ica Valley. He recently installed a new, high tech drip irrigation system designed by an Israeli expat who lives nearby.

"It works better than what we thought," Betín said. "We were thinking we were going to save 40 percent water in the first year, and we saved 70."

Betín said his asparagus is just as good as the crop grown with conventional irrigation. And he said if the other growers in the region copy him, it could make a huge difference.

"If only the asparagus growers change, you'd save like 70 million cubic meters a year. So you have a big part of the problem solved there," he said.

As for Bayer, he thinks more farmers should follow the example of Checa: just stop growing water-hungry crops like asparagus. Or at least cut back on them. And he thinks some land should be taken out of production altogether, to let the aquifer recharge.

Of course most growers aren't interested in killing their cash crop. The Peruvian government has taken halting steps toward addressing the water crisis here. But some Peruvians say big changes may only come through pressure from a more formidable force: international consumers.

Stefan Bederski runs an organic farm about two hours from Ica. He said all the positive changes in agriculture in Peru recently - from better pay and working conditions to stronger environmental controls - all came largely through pressure from overseas markets, especially in Europe.

"They have been really the ones who have forced the Peruvian agriculture and the companies to do the things right," Bederski says. "We do have our own local laws and national laws, but there is no force to make them happen."

Bederski thinks it might well be the same with the overuse of Peru's water, that it's the consumers overseas who will make the difference.

An international coalition of nonprofits is already trying to make that possible. They're developing water use standards that will be like fair trade standards.

They say the effort will help consumers in Europe and the U.S. learn more about the impact of asparagus and other imported produce on water in the growing countries, that way they can choose products that don't take a big gulp from someone else's cup.

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Peru's cash crop, asparagus is bleeding key region dry

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Peru has recently become the world's number one exporter of asparagus, sending the green vegetable to places in Europe and the United States. Listen to the Story. The boom there has pumped a lot of money into the economy, but it's also pumped out a lot of water.

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Asparagus industry starves Peruvians of water

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Asparagus industry starves Peruvians of water

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Asparagus farming, which is highly water intensive, has grown so fast in parts of Peru that it is drying up some of the country's aquifers.

According to the National Water Authority, the city of Ica uses 35 percent of all the underground water reserves in the country.

Within three years, one particular region could have no more water left for agriculture.

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Asparagus industry starves Peruvians of water

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Government says within three years one region could have no more water left for agriculture.

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What are you having for your Easter lunch? Roast lamb, leeks and new potatoes? Minted peas? The quintessentially English asparagus? Easter is synonymous with growth, new life, warmer weather and abundance. However, this picture can be deceptive.

For British farmers, spring is indeed a period for new growth, but little is ready to harvest. April is one of the leanest months in the farming calendar. The Hungry Gap, as it is called, lasts from March until June.

The reality for anyone trying to eat sustainably is that locally grown organic produce is scarce. British new potatoes may not be ready for Easter lunch. Neither will peas or spring onions. You may find broad beans and leeks. Of course you can get asparagus, but check the label - if it's British the chances are it cost a fortune, if not it's probably travelled 6000 miles.

Before I founded Crop Drop, a community-based organic veg box scheme - I was unaware of the hungry gap. When doing my grocery shop I would favour Union Jack labels, but a few food miles wouldn't stop me from buying what I wanted. Now that I'm responsible for providing 90+ people each week with local produce, I pay more attention. Because of Crop Drop's commitment to sustainability, I now know that this is a complex time of year requiring trade offs and sacrifices. Which means no asparagus. That quintessential spring treat is just too expensive for most of us!

Asparagus from Peru and Mexico can be found in supermarkets as early as February, costing around £2 per bunch. You will only find British asparagus from April to June, at more than twice the price. Until recently, Peru dominated the global market, devaluing British produce. But what's the true cost of this South American success?

Apart from the obvious carbon footprint of all those air miles, lust for this luxury vegetable is creating a water crisis in Peru, leading to daily hardship, loss of livelihood and civil unrest. The UK charity, Progressio, investigated the crisis in 2010. What they found was alarming.

The Ica Valley in Peru is one of the driest places in the world. Thanks to major investment, mostly from the World Bank, large agri-businesses re-greened the desert in the 1990's with monoculture fields of asparagus. According to Progressio, "cultivation of asparagus in Peru exploded to cover nearly 100 square kilometres by 2008." They also reported that since the boom, "the water table in the valley has plummeted in places by as much as eight metres each year."

Ground water is provided by the Ica river, rising in the mountains of Huancavelica, Peru's poorest region. Indigenous people, already lacked water because of mining pollution and depleted icecaps, which feed the river. Much of their supply is diverted to asparagus farms. In the Ica Valley, wells are drying up and water rates are astronomical, forcing farmers to sell their land to the asparagus trade. Supplies are severely rationed, yet one giant asparagus farm can use as much water as the entire city of Ica every day.

In 2002 alarm bells rang. Although irrigation technology has improved, there is still a dire need for government regulation of water supplies and corporate responsibility standards to be upheld by retailers.

Before you begin your boycott of Peruvian asparagus, consider that it has created near-zero unemployment in the region. However short-term and unsustainable, the asparagus trade has been a lifeline to the Peruvian economy. As the UK is the third largest importer, we have a responsibility to those livelihoods.

The price of asparagus doesn't reflect reality. The costs of overexploiting precious resources are passed on to small farmers who cannot afford crippling water rates, to highlanders struggling to survive, and to all of us suffering the consequences of carbon emissions. So what should Peruvian asparagus really cost?

Our economic system forces us to decide between people and planet. It pits us against nature, treating ecosystems only as exploitable resources, and against each other, demanding low costs and cutting work forces in favour of mechanisation. However there is a growing clamour for a different approach to farming.

Vandana Shiva, director of the Navdanya movement, protecting small farms in India, says food production should transcend false measures which neo-liberal economics use to judge a commodity's value. She claims that the economic, environmental and food crises all stem from outmoded paradigms rooted in the age of cheap oil and fossil fuels. We disregard ecological boundaries and focus solely on market value.

Closer to home, there's a burgeoning movement quietly transforming food and farming in the UK. This includes farmers' markets, food co-ops and community veg-box schemes. Growing Communities, a London-based social enterprise, has been running a veg-box scheme, an organic farmers' market and "patchwork farms" - small growing sites nestled into the urban landscape - for almost 20 years. Julie Brown, the founder and director says, "we're providing up to 3000 people with organic, seasonal and locally grown produce each week. We're harnessing the collective buying power of the community, using it to change what we eat, how we eat and how it's farmed." They also have a start-up programme supporting more communities to set up their own veg-box schemes in the wake of this successful model.

These grass roots initiatives hold the key to a sustainable future. Which doesn't necessarily help the people of Ica, caught between a rock and a hard place. Will this vital source of employment dry up, alongside the wells? What are Peru's chances of developing sustainable systems? Since Progressio's 2010 report, we have heard little about the situation. Until consumer awareness of asparagus production equals that of coffee, tea, cocoa, palm oil and sugar, there is no incentive for South American trade to implement Fairtrade initiatives or sustainability monitoring standards. Sadly, there is no clear solution yet. But let's start with a reality check - this much loved Easter treat is a luxury item that Peruvians have paid a high price for us to eat.
Images by Rob Ireton, Nick Hemworth and Progressio

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Asparagus: Draining Peru dry - Sustainable Food Trust

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What are you having for your Easter lunch? Roast lamb, leeks and new potatoes? Minted peas? The quintessentially English asparagus? Easter is synonymous with growth, new life, warmer weather and abundance. However, this picture can be deceptive. For British farmers, spring is indeed a period for new growth, but little is ready to harvest.

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EXAM STYLE QUESTION - Explain the rising popularity of one named crop and discuss the impact it is having on the physical environment  [10]

IMPORTANT - USING EITHER ASPARAGUS OR ANY OTHER SUITABLE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCT YOU MAYHAVE STUDIED, COMPLETE THE ABOVE QUESTION

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How Peru's wells are being sucked dry by British love of asparagus

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How Peru's wells are being sucked dry by British love of asparagus

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Asparagus grown in Peru and sold in the UK is commonly held up as a symbol of unacceptable food miles, but a report has raised an even more urgent problem: its water footprint.

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Asparagus grown in Peru and sold in the UK is commonly held up as a symbol of unacceptable food miles, but a report has raised an even more urgent problem: its water footprint.

The study, by the development charity Progressio, has found that industrial production of asparagus in Peru's Ica valley is depleting the area's water resources so fast that smaller farmers and local families are finding wells running dry. Water to the main city in the valley is also under threat, it says. It warns that the export of the luxury vegetable, much of it to British supermarkets, is unsustainable in its current form.

The Ica Valley is a desert area in the Andes and one of the driest places on earth. The asparagus beds developed in the last decade require constant irrigation, with the result that the local water table has plummeted since 2002 when extraction overtook replenishment. In some places it has fallen by eight metres each year, one of the fastest rates of aquifer depletion in the world.

The UK is the world's sixth largest importer of "virtual water", that is water needed to produce the goods it buys from other countries, according to WWF. Much of the UK's thirst is directly related to the boom in high-value food imports in recent years. The market in fresh asparagus is typical; it barely existed before the end of the 1990s. Now the UK is the third largest importer of fresh Peruvian asparagus, consuming 6.5 million kilos a year.

Peru meanwhile has become the largest exporter of asparagus in the world, earning more than $450m a year from the trade. Around 95% of that asparagus comes from the Ica valley.

The expansion of the agricultural frontier in the region was made possible thanks to multimillion dollar investments by the World Bank from the late 1990s on. In just 10 years asparagus cultivation has exploded to cover nearly 100sq km of reclaimed desert. Some of the largest producers have received loans from the World Bank's commercial investment arm totalling $20m (£12m) or more over that period. The trade has created around 10,000 new jobs in a very poor area, contributing significantly to Peru's growth, but it has already provoked conflict. When a World Bank executive went to investigate complaints about the water shortages in April he was shot at.

"The water tragedy unfolding in this region of Peru should set alarms bells ringing for government, agribusiness and retailers involved in Ica's asparagus industry," said report author Nick Hepworth.

The report accuses supermarkets and investors, including the World Bank, of failing to take proper responsibility for the impact of their decisions on poorer countries' water resources. "We need action now to ensure water is used sustainably in Ica and beyond," said Hepworth .

Two wells serving up to 18,500 people in the valley have already dried up. Traditional small- and medium-scale farmers have also found their water supplies severely diminished.

Juan Alvarez's experience is typical. His family has farmed the Ica valley for four generations. He employs 10 people through the year, with up to 40 jobs for workers in peak asparagus season, but he says those livelihoods are under threat.

The wells on his farm used to hit water at 55 metres and he could pump 60 litres of water a second from them. Now some have dried out and where there is still water he has to drill down to 108 metres and can extract only 22 litres a second even at that depth.

Alvarez told researchers: "Agroexporters came with new government policies and tax exemptions. They bought water rights and started buying wells very far away. They have created jobs and that's important, but the reality is they are depleting the water resources and when the water is gone they will leave. But what future is there for us? We will never leave."

For smaller farmers the crisis is even more acute. Elisa Gomez and her family own a small farm next to one of the largest asparagus exporters and have to buy water for irrigation from the local canal, but the industrial production has made it hard to survive. "We pay for water for 15 days twice a year. But the soil is not as productive as before and dries out in just three days. Now the land is so dry the water drains away much faster."

The rights to the wells in their part of the valley have all been sold to the exporter. "Those of us who didn't sell land suffered water shortages, so many people were forced to sell anyway. The exporters just wait for people to get tired and sell them cheap dry land," she said.

The large-scale exporting companies are not immune from the crisis of overextraction either. They are facing rising costs for their water. They have been deepening existing wells, buying up old ones from neighbouring land and piping water across huge distances. Some are also alleged to have got round a ban on new wells by paying off officials.

One of the largest and most modern of Peru's fresh asparagus producers, which supplies 18% of exports to the UK, spoke to Progressio researchers anonymously. It has received loans from the World Bank's lending arm. Its chief executive said that the water levels in some wells were falling by as much as two metres a year. All its wells are licensed and legal but he said regulation was weak and there was no inspection of what people extracted.

"Peru provides the world with the best example of how to mismanage water. We desperately need to rationalise water use in the Ica. We are spending huge sums just to survive."

He argued that big businesses such as his were at the forefront of science to use water efficiently but traditional farmers used water carelessly.

Competition for diminishing global water resources is emerging as one of the most pressing concerns for business as well as development organisations. Leading retailers have told the Guardian privately water shortages in the areas where they source fresh fruit and vegetables out of season is top of their list of priorities when they check how sustainable their businesses are.

The water shortages on Peru's Pacific coast are expected to get worse as climate change shrinks the glaciers that feed the Ica river system.

Promoting food for export has been a key plank in World Bank policy for developing countries. Its investment arm, the International Finance Corporation, said in a statement that it aims to promote sustainable development through investment in private sector companies, which it requires to commit to minimising their water use: "We define sustainability as providing economic growth opportunities for the poor and protecting the environment and the rights of vulnerable communities."

How far the policy helps the poorest in those countries remains a subject of fierce debate among international development experts. Progressio is not calling for an end to the asparagus export business. "The area relies on asparagus for employment. We are not saying the trade itself is wrong but supermarkets and investors have to take responsibility for finding more of a balance," said Petra Kjell, an environmental policy officer.

We asked the leading UK retailers to comment but only two were able to do so in the time available. M&S said: "We have a range of responsible water use projects under way and have strengthened our farming standards to include greater focus on water efficiency."

Tesco said: "We are pleased that Progressio has highlighted Tesco's role in raising industry standards in water management in areas such as the Ica Valley.

"We have a strong record in this area and our Nurture standard is regularly reviewed and improved. We acknowledge there is more to do and so we are continually working with our suppliers to help them minimise their environmental impact, including water use."
Names of farmers have been changed.
Case study

Alicia Flores and her family live in the village of Callejón de los Espinos in Peru's Ica Valley. Each house in the village normally receives water for about one hour, three times a week.

They used to get two hours' water four times a week, but about four years ago the water pressure dropped off dramatically, as agricultural exporters extracted more and more groundwater. Then the 2007 earthquake exacerbated the problem by damaging infrastructure. Now, when the water is on, the family is only able to collect half the amount of water they used to, so they are reduced to 10 litres of water per person, per day. The World Health Organisation says a person needs five times that amount to maintain health.

Like most people in the village, Alicia's husband works for the asparagus exporters. They say the working conditions are good but pay and benefits have been cut since the global economic crisis.

"We have seen water pressure dropping in the past years since the agro-exporters came, but if the water runs out and they leave, we will have no work and no water. What will happen to our children then?" asked one villager.
Names have been changed Topics

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How Peru's wells are being sucked dry by British love of asparagus

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Asparagus grown in Peru and sold in the UK is commonly held up as a symbol of unacceptable food miles, but a report has raised an even more urgent problem: its water footprint.

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Peru's asparagus factories are running wells dry

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Peru's asparagus factories are running wells dry

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Water is running out in Peru's Ica valley, largely because of Britain's increasing demand for asparagus. Peru is one of the world's biggest exporters of asparagus and most of it is farmed on an industrial scale in the Ica valley. Water management has now become an urgent issue

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Water is running out in Peru's Ica valley, largely because of Britain's increasing demand for asparagus. Peru is one of the world's biggest exporters of asparagus and most of it is farmed on an industrial scale in the Ica valley. Water management has now become an urgent issue

Read Felicity Lawrence's blog on the issue

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Peru's asparagus factories are running wells dry

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Water is running out in Peru's Ica valley, largely because of Britain's increasing demand for asparagus. Peru is one of the world's biggest exporters of asparagus and most of it is farmed on an industrial scale in the Ica valley. Water management has now become an urgent issue

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Cynthia Graber reports on the water stress being caused by Peru's booming cultivation of asparagus for export to the US and Europe.

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Cynthia Graber reports on the water stress being caused by Peru's booming cultivation of asparagus for export to the US and Europe.

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Asparagus farming, which is highly water intensive, has grown so fast in parts of Peru that it is drying up some of the country's aquifers.
According to the National Water Authority, the city of Ica uses 35 percent of all the underground water reserves in the country.
Within three years, one particular region could have no more water left for agriculture.
Al Jazeera's Mariana Sanchez reports from Ica.

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Asparagus industry starves Peruvians of water

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Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe Subscribe to our channel http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe Asparagus farming, which is highly water intensive, has grown so fast in parts of Peru that it is drying up some of the country's aquifers. According to the National Water Authority, the city of Ica uses 35 percent of all the underground water reserves in the country.