FACTORTIERRA

Piura's banana opens its way fastly in the international market.   LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- American people look like to love banana, so Dominican Republic seems to be the spoiled one. The Caribbean country  is the main provider of the fruit, Peru is just behind.  The United States  International Trade Commission reports that Peru's banana exportation was US$ 53 million in 2015. U.S. is the main market for Peru. According to Peru's Foreign Trade Office in Los Angeles, it could displace Dominicans in the short term if it makes the productive chain more competitive, what means a more attractive value added,  and researches to avoid the plagues can decimate the production.  In fact, one of the challenges for Peruvian producers is keeping black sigatoka ( Mycosphaerella fijiensis ) away, a very common disease in Dominican Republic and Mexico as well, the other fruit producer. Both combined represent the half of the world's share. At least in the U...

While you taste the fruit, he makes those wonders with his hands.   Photographs provided by Antony Medina , distributed by FACTORTIERRA.   SALITRAL (Sullana), Peru – In general, we believe the banana process finishes when we consume it as fruit or preparation – a shake or an ice-cream, for example. However, the fiber forming its trunk can have more lives than a cat.   What we believe it’s the trunk  of a banana plant, it’s actually layers of leaves surrounding the real trunk, once the plant goes growing up, they go displaying. The fiber comes out from there, whether the layer is green or dry.   The fiber can be used in sheets or threads, even. Its products are many – from utilitarian objects to clothes, passing through handicraft. In fact, if the banana thread is mercerized, it comes out a cloth with a texture quite similar to denim, and if the fiber is thinner, the texture is similar to silk. In both cases, the mercerized thread is hard to brea...

The routine consists in working, spending, looking like, an waiting for… the next month.   All photographs by Estany Tineo for FACTORTIERRA.    SULLANA, Peru – So near, so far. The towns of Upper Chira Valley’s left bank stand just 20 minutes away Sullana City , and it seems a world aside. So near, so far. The people hold very god TV’s, sound systems, freezers, but what hardly could be found in a house is running water, or, at least, a latrine that guarantees the excrement won’t be anywhere.   So near, so far. Amid the modern furniture, the most houses continue building of pasted mud and mud bricks, so near… so far. The mud is the only one connecting the people of this part of Upper Chira to their ancestors. The archaeologist Daniel Davila , who accompanied us before researching in Malingas Community , suspects tallán people went around looking for agricultural lands, taking Chira River as water source.   The green mantle The archeology is ...

TAMBOGRANDE, Peru – As part of the interchange of experiences held by the Qali Warma (from Quechuan, Strong Child) National Programme for School Feeding, the School Feeding Committees (CAE as its acronyme in Spanish) from Sullana, La Arena, Cura Mori, and Tambogrande Districts knew the Organic Banana – A diversity of benefits for school’s feeding educational productive project, applied by the 15105 School in quebrada Parales Town. Parents have organized for growing organic banana  that joins to the local production addressed to exportation, which incomes are used for covering the needs of the school, especially the feeding. There are 200 elementary school students attended by the Ministry of Social Inclusion and Vulnerable Population through the Qali warma Programme, that provides them breakfast and lunch by delivering a basic food basket that is complemented with crops from their school’s orchard. The school’s principal and CAE’s president Emilsen Barrantes Alvarado...

When we met Edelmira, we became her fansaand we looked for her in her barn. Error – she was at the Post-Grade School.   By Water, Democracy And Development Regional Network   PIURA CITY, Peru – Edelmira Buleje Baca was the little cow’s name which presented in December 2008 at Piura National University ’s Post-Grade School auditorium, and that performed the corporate image of everlasting businesses in Piura, that involve diverse entrepreneurship experiences looking for release nationwide intented to empower and respect the economic activities supporting the actual and future sustainable development of the department.   Edelmira presented with Piura Organic Banana Center (Cepibo, as in Spanish)’sJosé Lecarnaqué , Upper Piura Valley Mango Growers Association (Apromalpi, as in Spanish)’s César Morocho,  and Piura Coffee Growers Center (Cepicafé, as in Spanish)’s Wilfredo López, who presented details about the contribution of the economic activities they give to the depa...

The agricultural-exporting present  and a highly possible archaeological past are its two main assets, at the moment. All photographs by Ángelo Azabache , distributed by FACTORTIERRA   SULLANA, Peru - In the place where the towns of West sullana and Jíbito are up to join, but more aligned near Chira River , it is located La Capilla, the site where a same-named big estate was controlled from, in which farms the Bishop Baltazar Jaime Martínez d Compañón y Bujanda gota gifted property to founding Santísima Trinidad de La Punta Village, on July 8th, 1783, the coretown of Sullana Metropolitan Area the second largest of Piura Region. Then, La Capilla belonged to Del Castillo Family and seemed to enlarge across  the space that cities of Sullana and Bellavista occupy today, although the official history says the estate which terrain the town was founded, was called La Punta (The Point, in English) what might explain its initial name, however its founder tried to name...