10 months after the Olmos Irrigation System started operations in the Lambayeque region 5,061 hectares in the Valle Nuevo have been planted with grape, avocado, cotton, cranberry, onion, paprika, pepper, sugar cane, and crotalaria crops. Cultivating these hectares of land required an investment of $130 million dollars.
Representatives of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru (BCRP), accompanied by the general manager Tinajones Olmos Special Project (PEOT), visited the works of the Olmos Irrigation Project and toured its infrastructure, which has been operating since November 2014. The delegation noted the change that the arrival of water, which enables agricultural production in 5,500 hectares of Valle Viejo and 38,000 hectares of Valle Nuevo, has produced in Olmos. The visitors saw how the site was being prepared, the water mains installed, a sugar plant was being constructed in a lot of AgroOlmos, and irrigation equipment and power lines were being routed.
The officials also visited the organic banana seedling nursery located in Olmos’ Valle Viejo, where the PEOT negotiated the financing for 3 farmer associations that will start planting 100.5 hectares of organic bananas this month. There are more than 17,000 hectares that have been levelled in Valle Nuevo, 3,500 of which will be used to plant sugarcane, 851 hectares for avocado, 200 for cotton, 150 for grapes, 140 for pepper, 100 will be planted with paprika, 50 with onion, 45 with crotalaria, and 25 hectares will be used to cultivate blueberry, which will generate jobs for nearly 1,400 people.
Rocio Gondo Mori, head of the Economic Situation Department of the Central Bank’s Main Office, said she was astonished to see the advance generated by the Olmos Project, which exceeded all expectations, and that she was convinced that its economic impact would spread out of the Lambayeque region across the whole country.
The visit’s technical guidance was given by the general manager of the PEOT, Juan Saavedra Jimenez; the manager of Promotion and Investment of the PEOT, Jorge Pasco Cosmopolis, and the head of the Unit for Social Development Management of the PEOT, Pedro Yesquen Zapata.
As well as professionals from the H2Olmos Concessionaire and Pro Olmos HOA, who accompanied the delegation comprised by representatives of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru: Rocio Gondo, Tabacchi Mario Alvarado, head of the Economic Studies Department of Piura, and Ketty Vásquez and Ana Paola Gutierrez, specialists from the Bank’s Central Economic Studies.
Source: entornointeligente.com / With information from Andina