The Señor Cautivo Commonwealth

By Julio Vásquez Calle

 

MONTERO, Peru – The former Sícchez [Seekches] District’s Mayor Octavio Chuquihuanga Cunya, also former president of the Señor Cautivo Commonwealth, said in 2008 that the rural agriculture of Piura Department highlands is different to the agriculture in lowlands. Those differences are that offer a development chance, joined to the organizations, into an only development vision.

 

“Being this agricultural corridor [Montero, Jililí, and Sícchez], today it wants to be agriexporter when it is already exporting ecologic coffee to the fair trade markets, international markets, today we are going to make it with the ecologic sugar,” affirmed Mr Chuquihuanga, who also confirmed it was building the first hi-tech industrial processing plant of ecologic sugar in Sícchez District.

 

By his side, the former Montero District’s Mayor Ramón Febre Palacios, also former vice-president of the commonwealth, shared the successful experience by exporting the ecologic sugar, that comes improving the life quality of locals because of the economic dynamism.

 

“To be processing the sugarcane, transforming it in ecologic sugar, has served for the farmer, the Andean local to improve its life quality and to have better incomes, not only for the sugarcane grower but the whole population, because when it has a big quantity of national as well as international visitors, the hotels, the restaurants go improving their life condition,” the mayor stated.

 

The Commonwealth and the ecosystems

The Señor Cautivo Commonwealth is established by the municipalities of Districts Sícchez, Jililí [Hililee] , Montero, Paimas, Lagunas, and Ayabaca Province Municipality. Inside the municipal priorities, mostly located in the Andean Range, is to protect, through conservation areas, the cloud forests and the Andean páramos because they are water generating zones, the same that feed Quiroz Basin and thousand of farmers in Piura lowlands.

 

As much as known, Piura Andes does not own snow-covered mountains because it locates in the lowest part of that range in general, not raising above 13,200 feet altitude. However, the water coming from those highlands is originated because of the natural ecosystem called by some scientists as Andean páramo. This ecosystem catches and stores the water that is like fog in the air, then flow it down to the basin lowlands.

 

Among other Commonwealth priorities is the development of productive chains of cattle, grains, ecologic sugar, medicinal herbs, as well as the improvement of little systems and application of sprinkler irrigation and asphalting of roads from Paimas to Montero and to Ayabaca.

 

Additional edition by FACTORTIERRA. The pictures on this entry belong to the FACTORTIERRA Archive.