Government agencies don’t respond to the needs of those who work the land

Even though the Puerto Rico Land Authority and the Puerto Rico Land Administration have ample power to act on behalf of farmers with small and medium-sized operations, these agencies can do much more to respond to their needs, according to research by the Fideicomiso de Tierras Comunitarias para la Agricultura Sostenible (Community Land Trust for Sustainable Agriculture, in English), or FiTiCAS, in collaboration with Espacios Abiertos.

The report Access to Agricultural Land: Current Public Policy and Experiences highlights the difficulties farmers without capital face in order to access public arable land, particularly due to the preference that government agencies show toward large-scale industrial agriculture and monoculture.

In an interview with CLARIDAD, the executive director of FiTICAS, Mariolga Reyes Cruz, stated that the research is partly motivated by the fact that the Trust was founded near the end of 2019 to protect land indefinitely and designate its use for agroecological farmers, who farm while protecting nature and who lack land and capital.

“At FiTICAS we recognize, on the one hand, that of the 600 thousand acres identified by the 2015 Land Use Plan, most of it is in private hands, and many of the challenges faced by farmers who farm on a small and medium scale, leasing or financing the purchase of their lands, are problems they are facing with both the private sector and the state.”

Reyes Cruz explained that farmers who plant on a small scale—5, 10 or 20 acres—have been faced with having to rent larger farms than the ones they are accustomed to. In the case of the Land Authority, it was found that the available farms all have 50 acres or more. The investigation reveals that the laws and regulations governing the Land Authority allow the agency to divide the farm in parts, or lease farms to groups of farmers and allow those farmers to decide how they distribute the land among each other. However, she condemned that these are things the agency has been unwilling to do.

“This reflects more of a mindset issue than a regulatory issue.”  She advocated that dividing farms would provide more opportunity for more farmers and would also mean that farmers start with what they can. “We are talking about farmers who want to farm, they are not agro-dealers with lines of credit and private financing, they are people who want to produce.”

Sometimes the agency recognizes that there are areas on a 50-acre farm that are not arable because they are wetlands or mogotes, but it still charges the lease for all 50 acres. These are actions that are within the agency's control.

She emphasized that support for this type of agroecological, small farm project is more aligned with what is being practiced on an international level, that food should be produced while mitigating and adapting to climate change. “Recognizing the particularities of this type of agriculture is something that is also at their discretion,” said the executive director of the Land Trust.

In this type of farming, more than one crop is grown on an acre. That means that an acre is not going to have the same economic performance as an acre of crops that takes three or nine months or three years to produce, in comparison to one of short cycles. The leasing canons have to be able to consider this; if they don't, they will treat all businesses as if they were a monoculture agribusiness dedicated to exporting.

Reyes Cruz and the research cite that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2018 Census of Agriculture reflected that most farms in Puerto Rico make less than $10,000 annually. With that income, the average farmer has to deal with farm expenses and its survival, which is why most of them have more than one job.

“If the state has it in its hands to assume part of the risks that these people are taking on an individual level, it must see that we face a high food vulnerability. What we want is for the people who are in the agencies to know, if they don't already know, what exactly is preventing them from doing it; that it can be done, that it is in their hands.”

Lack of information on land

The study shows that between 1940 to 2018 there has been a 85% decrease of the total number of agricultural farms and 74% decrease of the land used for agriculture. The research also reveals that agencies do not have the necessary information to establish the amount of public agricultural land in Puerto Rico.

According to the last Agricultural Census, there are 487,775 acres in Puerto Rico, which equate to 21.6% of available land, currently in agricultural use. These are divided into 8,230 farms, with an average size of 59.3 acres. Of the 487,775 acres in use, approximately 52,870 acres belong to the Land Authority, which represents 10.8% of the total productive agricultural farms in the nation. On the Land Administration’s side—which also leases land for agricultural use—data on these lands are not available.

Reyes Cruz said that, among their calls to action, they should consider the importance of having updated data on the lands owned by the agencies, including detailed information on the number of leased lands, those that are in usufruct, and the type of use they are given. She stated that it costs farmers a lot of work and years to obtain a contract because when they visit the agency, they are not given a map of where the farms are located and their current state.

Also, it is important that there be reports of repaid expenses, to know the investment that the Land Authority or the Land Administration is making in acquiring the land, in permanent improvements, in service for the improvement of the equipment acquired for the farmers and professional services, and other assistance for farmers. In other words, both agencies must create reports on how they are investing in agricultural development, both in public lands and in direct services to farmers, she added.

‍This article was originally published on the Claridad newspaper website. This is an edited and shortened version published by 9 Millones. To read the original version, click here.