Bill 450.

Summary.

The bill amends Law 107 of November 21, 2013 to expressly include plantains in the National Grain and Other Agricultural Products Production Incentive Program. By revising Section 1, it provides that incentives are intended to support food security by strengthening agriculture and increasing basic grain production. It connects that objective to the combined contribution of these products to approximately 50% of the caloric content of the Basic Food Basket. The bill also seeks to help limit increases in its cost, expand cultivated acreage and output to achieve self sufficiency in products grown or capable of being grown in the country, restore agricultural profitability, and support the competitive position of agricultural products and grains in domestic and external markets.

The amendment to Section 2 identifies the products covered by the Program: rice, corn, common beans, other beans, sorghum, soybeans, potatoes, onions, processing tomatoes, and plantains. The amendment to Section 3 defines an agricultural cycle as the period from May 1 through the following April 30. It identifies the covered beans as Vigna sp, known as frijol chiricano, and Cajanus cajan, known as guandú, when grown in the country. It treats a hectare as additional cultivated acreage if none of the listed crops has been grown or cultivated on it during the previous three agricultural cycles. It also defines a hectare with installed irrigation and calculates yield per hectare by dividing harvested production by planted area.

The same section defines mandatory insurance as the agricultural insurance policy each producer must hold to receive incentives, with information including the insured area and irrigation. It defines certified seed by its origin or handling and compliance with requirements set by the National Seed Committee (Comité nacional de Semillas). It confines the definition of sorghum to sorghum used for feed and describes plantains as a green or ripe food product produced and consumed in the country.

Within the revised text, the bill adds a plantain provision to Section 4 of Law 107 of 2013. It allows growers to request a productivity bonus from the Ministry of Agricultural Development (Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario) when yields reach at least 300 quintals per hectare. The bonus is B/.500.00 for each quintal produced and sold beginning with the sixth hectare of production. To determine yield, growers must register the relevant areas with the ministry. Those areas are confirmed against the mandatory agricultural insurance policy or georeferenced acreage supported by a technical report from the appropriate ministry office. A ministry report confirms each grower’s production volume for the registered areas. Art. 4 of the bill declares Sections 1 through 4 of that law amended, while Art. 5 provides for commencement on the day after promulgation.

The bill concerns the Ministry of Agricultural Development and the National Seed Committee, as well as agricultural producers, agricultural insurers, and the production, marketing, and consumer sectors associated with the covered products.