The President of the Republic, Santiago Peña, encouraged the modernization of small peasant agriculture in Paraguay, so that it is developed together with the business model “with the same tools.” He stated that poverty in such a rich country is unacceptable and that the countryside is “the solution to Paraguay’s problems.”
At the inauguration of Innovar 2024, the largest business agriculture fair in the country, the president highlighted that the countryside is probably the main engine of Paraguay’s economy today and affirmed that there lies the solution to the problems of poverty and inequality that persist. in the country.
«It cannot be that corporate agriculture, of very high precision, continues to coexist in Paraguay, but at the same time our small producers continue to sow and harvest as they did 100 years ago; “It is unacceptable, we are failing,” said the president.
He pointed out that if the State, through its institutions, is not capable of giving small producers the tools for their development, it will be failing, because it has been proven that cooperative producers who work with financing are successful.
In that sense, he highlighted that the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock has delivered 43 tractors to committees of small producers, and that the Agricultural Habilitation Credit, for the first time in its history, today provided a credit for a small producer to buy their own tractor.
In addition, he asked the financial system to transfer more competitive long-term interest rates to the entire chain and to finance small producers.
“We will continue to deliver tractors from the Government, but there is no greater satisfaction than knowing that one achieves this through their own merits,” he stated.
The president indicated that the development of the entire rural sector will occur through a combination of different measures, in different areas, from the work of the Ministry of the Interior in the defense of private property, to the regularization of the lands of small producers through Indert, in addition to the technical and credit assistance of the institutions in charge.
He pointed out that “one way to protect the medium and large rural producer is to ensure that next to them there is a small one that works prosperously and has the same tools.”
Regarding the peasant march, which tomorrow arrives in Asunción, the president said he was open to “they coming to present ideas to us.” “We are convinced that they will not find us tired or hopeless to work with the countryside, because we are convinced that the solution to Paraguay’s problems lies in the countryside,” he stated.
«We have to continue betting on this model»
With reference to the Innovar 2024 fair, the president stated that “coming to Innovar is encouraging us to dream, looking at the latest technology in seeds, fertilizers and agricultural machinery.”
“This is a Paraguay that I want to support, that continues to grow and that we say that Paraguay is number one in sustainable production, and we are going to defend this model with knowledge, with science, with technology, but mainly with patriotism,” he said.
The president stressed that in these five years of his government we will not talk about tax increases, but “we are going to talk about how we are going to generate employment.” “That’s what drives us every day,” he said.
«We are also going to worry about supporting the medium and small producer, because if we take care of the small one we are going to be taking care of the big one, because there is no possibility in Paraguay of having a developed Paraguay, a Paraguay that is a protagonist and that plays in the big leagues if this does not reach everyone, and you know what, we can make it reach everyone,” concluded the President of the Republic Santiago Peña.