Lebanon Co. agent visiting South America
> Editor's Note: The
following report was
prepared by Newton Bair, a
former York County
dairyman and now Lebanon
County Extension Agent It
is one of a series of reports
from Mr. Bair which
LANCASTER FARMING
will be publishing while he is
getting a glimpse of
agriculture in other parts of
the world.
By NEWTON BAER
While Henry Kissinger's
visit to South America
dominated the headlines the
past three weeks, a group of
Central Pennsylvanians
were also filling the role of
Good Will Ambassadors in
five South American
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countries. I was lucky
enough to be among the
People - To - People
agricultural delegation
which visited Panama, Peru,
Paraguay, Argentina and
Brazil.
We met with U.S. Em
bassy personnel,
Agricultural Ministers, and
Cooperative and Farm
Organization leaders and we
were welcomed on the farms
and in the homes of all types
of farm people in each of the
five countries we visited.
Here are some of my per
sonal impressions of the
lands, the people, and the
agriculture of South
America.
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Panama
Panama ia the only place
in the world where the sun
rises over the Pacific Ocean
and sets over the Atlantic.
The Canal Zone, 10 miles
wide and 50 miles long, runs
from the Atlantic side
eastward to the Gulf of
Panama, which is on the
Pacific coast. The United
States has only 27 years left
on a 99 year lease and
already there is some
resentment toward our
presence, although the
Panamanians realize that
they need the economic
stimulus of United States
management of the Canal.
They have very little com
mercial agriculture - all of
the farms we visited are
subsistence-type farms.
By our standard, farming
in these small subsistence
farms is very primitive but
the people seem to be well
fed and fairly content. Many
adobe shacks in the country
have a TV antenna on the
roof and an old Ford parked
in front.
Peru
We got our first view of the
peaks of the Andes as we
flew over the equator at
sunrise, about 6:10 a.m. on
February 7th. It’s pretty
hard to imagine that people
live and even do some far
ming on the steep slopes of
many of the andean peaks.
The city of Cuzco, at 11,000
feet above sea level, is
heavily populated by poor
but picturesque Indians,
descendents of the once
proud Inca’s who were
humiliated and slaughtered
By the Spanish
conquistadors. For centuries
they have worked as
laborers on the fertile valley
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farms owned by wealthy
people of European descent,
and many arc subsisting on
unbelievably steep hillside
gardens on the mountain
peaks around Cuzco. Peru
has started a land reform
program by sub-dividing the
large, productive farms and
giving smaller parcels of
land to the laborers, mostly
Indians. The result has been
catastrophic since the small
landowners have no in
centive to produce any more
than they need themselves.
Farm production has
dropped while the population
continues to rise at an
astronomical rate even
though infant mortality
among the Indians is nearly
50 percent.
Lima, the capital city, has
four million people, which is
over one fourth of the
population of Peru. It was for
many years the gateway to
South America for the
Spanish explorers.
Peru’s agricultural
potential is limited except
along the Pacific coastal
plain. The central portion is
slashed by the Andes
Mountains and the eastern
part is mostly tropical
jungle. The United States
Agency for International
Development (AID) is
setting up a program of
technical aid to assist
Peruvians to become self
sufficient in agriculture.
James Stone, the United
States AID coordinator in
Peru was our dinner guest in
Lima.
The coastal plain soils of
Peru are rich in nutrients but
production is limited by only
four inches of rainfall per
year. Under irrigation,
fabulous corn crops are
produced - using hybrids that
require 180 days to mature.
We visited the Hacienda
Ceres, a good Holstein herd
owned by Jose Risso who is
improving his herd with A.I.
service imported from
Atlantic Breeders Co-op in
Lancaster. There are only a
few herds of the caliber of
this one in all of Peru - most
of the cattle we saw are
scrubby, underfed, and
parasite infested.
Paraguay
Paraguay is a rather poor
nation, landlocked in the
center of the Continent. The
only navigable outlet is by
way of the Parana River,
through Argentina. Large
areas of the country are
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Lancaster Farming. Saturday, March 13,1976
swampy and unproductive.
Eastern Paraguay seems to
be fairly productive, but
needs a lot of technical help.
Again, we are offering them
assistance through the US
AID program. An AID
technician, Don Waugh from
Madison, Wisconsin, went
with us to visit a cooperating
farmer near Asuncion.
Paraguay has an Ex
tension Service and our
People-To-People group
received the red carpet
treatment from the head of
the Servicio De Extension’
Agricola Granideria. As a
representative of the Penn
sylvania Agricultural Ex
tension Service, I was
honored by the presentation
of a small flag symbolic of
Paraguay’s 4-C youth clubs,
similar to our 4-H clubs.
Later we visited the farm
of a prominent 4-C leader
and met some youth club
members, an Extension
Home Economist, and the
local County Agent. The
farmer milked about 50 cows
and peddled the milk daily,
door-to-door in the nearby
town. His principal crops
were com, manioc (a root
crop), sugar cane, soybeans,
some peanuts, and Pangola
grass for forage. Alfalfa can
be grown, but the soil is acid
and needs lime. Fertilizer is
used very sparingly and is
quite expensive.
While in Asuncion, the
capital of Paraguay, the
People-To-People group
visited the U.S. Embassy
and were personally greeted
by the United States Am
bassador to Paraguay,
George Landaw. He briefed
us on the political and
cultural background of the
Paraguayan nation.
Although they hold elections
every five years, there is
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only one strong candidate,
General Stroessucr, who has
been In power since 1954.
Paraguay exports some
tea, hides, and wood
products but must import
many necessities such as
foodstuffs, machinery and
fuel.
A colony of Mennonite and
Amish farmers has been
established in central
Paraguay. We didn’t have
time to visit them but on the
flight from La Pax, Bolivia,
we met a group of Amish
people from Lancaster and
surrounding counties who
were on a pilgrimage to visit
their relatives in Paraguay.
An unusual but very pleasant
encounter in a small, small
world.
Paraguay’s National
Institute of Agronomy
receives technical and
research assistance from the
University of Kansas,
financed by U.S. AID. They
are working to develop
better forage crops from
alfalfa, buffalo grass,
Paspalum and Pangola. The
institute has many pieces of
modern farm equipment but
these are rarely seen on the
farms. Most farmers still use
a small horse as their
principal source of power,
and we saw many ox carts on
the road and some oxen
pulling plows and cultivators
in the fields.
Like most of the smaller
South American nations,
Paraguay is a land of ex
treme contrasts, where
squatter’s shacks can be
seen nestled between fine
homes. Education is the
stumbling block - an
educated person can com
mand an excellent income,
while the illiterate nearly
starve.
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