The VIII National Agricultural and Forestry Census, CAF, was carried out in 2021 and its results were finished publishing in the current year. But since the previous census of the same species dates from 2007, the difference in the figures that both show is so strong that it gives rise to all kinds of criticisms and suspicions – not always innocent – in relation to the most recent data. Bad than bad, the 2007 data have been considered good, without further analysis, for more than a decade, and the changes are not always well received.
But even if there are technical issues that are still to be clarified, there are certain trends on which all statistical sources agree. One of these trends is related to the decrease in the area devoted to annual crops.
Annual crops are those such as cereals, tubers, vegetables, legumes and some industrial crops, such as rap and marigold, in which sowing and the corresponding harvest take place over a maximum period of twelve months. Non-annual plantations are those such as fruit and forest plantations, whose planting and harvesting cycle takes several years.
According to the 2007 census, the area under annual crops covered a total of 620,275 hectares in that year. In 2021, according to this year’s census, those crops only covered a total of 536,474 hectares. Ninety thousand hectares less. The intercensal data, published by the Office of Agricultural Studies and Planning, Odepa, even using different figures, show a fall of approximately 95 thousand hectares in annual crops between those same years. That is, an amount very similar to that which emerges from the censuses of 2007 and 2021.
What happened to those 90 or 95 thousand hectares? There are several possible answers. The parcels in the lands near the big cities lead to lands that were previously destined for annual crops, now no longer used for those purposes. It is also possible that erosion and desertification processes are affecting certain farmlands, especially in the northern part of the country. It can be added that the prolonged drought has forced to leave uncultivated land that was previously in full production. But the hypothesis we want to explore in this column is the one that postulates that part of the annual crops have been replaced by permanent plantations, which changes the economic structure – and even the geography – of the Chilean countryside.
See. According to the aforementioned censuses, the area planted with fruit trees went from 324,293 hectares in 2007 to 374,809 hectares in 2021. That is, a jump of 50 thousand hectares, which may partly explain the reduction in the area destined for annual crops. According to Odepa data, which refer to year-on-year data, the area planted with fruit trees increased by approximately 100 thousand hectares in the analyzed period. Different figures are used, but in any case, a substantial increase in the area planted with fruit trees is postulated, which must have had some other different use, before its current use. Grape plantations for wine purposes are not counted, in turn, in agricultural statistics, as fruit production, but as an industrial input and the corresponding area increased by 20 thousand hectares between the two censuses analyzed.
The same happens with forest plantations. According to the 2007 and 2021 censuses, the corresponding area went from 1,805,976 hectares to 2,068,401 hectares. An increase of approximately 250 thousand hectares between the aforementioned years. Here too it is possible to postulate that this has been done at the expense, at least partially, of land previously dedicated to annual crops – such as wheat in the area of La Araucanía, for example – although it is also true that forest planting does not only occur on previous farmland.
In summary, there is sufficient precedent that suggests that for several years, and even at present, the country has experienced a slow but inexorable process of modification in land use, especially in relation to the reduction of the area dedicated to annual crops and the expansion of fruit and forest plantations.
The reduction of annual crops and the expansion of fruit and forestry plantations implies, to a large extent, a reduction in crops aimed at supplying the domestic market and an increasing orientation of national production towards the internal market.acional. All this, in turn, affects the conceptions that are handled around the issue of food security, which encourage a significant proportion of the foods of habitual consumption within the country – although not necessarily all – are produced in the national territory, as a mechanism of protection against the ups and downs of the international market and, in particular, decisions taken by transnational economic operators which affect the prices and quantities marketed of foodstuffs.
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The content expressed in this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
