Farmers in northern Panama are losing everything in the midst of the mining crisis

“I lost lettuce, cabbage and I am saving the potato because it lasts a little longer, but if there is no opening of the streets, we are also going to lose that production”Elfry Rigoberto Rodríguez, one of the thousands of small producers affected by the road blockades that are disrupting the economy, told EFE. Panama in the midst of the rejection of a great mine of copper.

Tierras Altas is the greenest area with a temperate climate in Panama, in contrast to the rest of this hot country. Located in the province of Chiriquí, bordering Costa Rica, it produces the vast majority of vegetables and legumes consumed in this country, as well as coffee, including the famous geisha, the most expensive specialty in the world.

But this region now exhibits a desolate landscape, with entire fields of lettuce, cabbage, carrots and others, unharvested and rotting.

These fresh products have practically disappeared from the shelves in urban centers, as a result of the crisis that broke out after the approval, on October 20, of the contract that extended the concession to the company Minera Panamá, a subsidiary of the Canadian company First Quantum Minerals. .

Lost crops

For weeks, indigenous groups have been blocking the routes through which production leaves the Highlands, with some partial openings. These are small groups of protesters armed with sticks and stones who say they will only leave the roads when the mine closes.

“Here I have this cabbage that is close to being lost. He has already completed his life cycle and should have been cut. Likewise, there are many producers who are losing their crops”laments Rodríguez, who estimates that his losses exceed US$20,000.

The representative of the Association of Highlands Producers, Augusto Jiménez, tells EFE that “Many producers depend on the day-to-day, harvest, sale and collection and that chain was broken.”

All production from October and mid-November was lost in the field and December production is already beginning, which is also at risk, he adds.

Verisimo Rivera Mora, a farmer from the La Menaza sector in Nueva Switzerland, confessed to EFE that his hope is to sell only the potatoes and onions that he has managed to save, because he lost 300 quintals of lettuce that was of very good quality. because the weather conditions had allowed it.

“If all this continues as it is, it will be a total loss and a debt with the banks and commercial houses that supply inputs and it will take us many years to recover,” he asserts.

The solution for producers

The intermittent openings of internal streets in Tierras Altas for 8 days have allowed the shipment of merchandise by air and sea to alleviate the shortage of these products, mainly in the country’s capital, Ante Fistonic, a producer from Cerro Punta, explains to EFE. , which supplies important supermarket chains.

But this way of sending small quantities to the cities does not benefit either the producer or the consumer, due to the high prices.

The total opening of the streets is the solution, say the producers, from the smallest to the largest, because fuel, which is very scarce, is urgently needed to continue production and for agricultural inputs to arrive for the new crops.

The rejection of the operation of the mine has left massive marches not seen in decades in Panama, the blocking of roads that have resulted in the death of 4 protesters and losses that exceed US$ 1.7 billion, in addition to a teacher strike that has without classes to nearly 800,000 students.

The fate of the mine, an investment of 10,000 million dollars, whose activity represents the 4.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP), according to the company, is in the hands of the Supreme Court of Justice, which starting this Friday will analyze two of the 10 unconstitutionality appeals presented against the law contract so far.