The Minister of Agriculture, Cecilia López, announced that in four years it is impossible to buy three million hectares, but they will leave the legal framework for future governments to do so.
“To be realistic, buying three million hectares in four years is impossible. In that I am very realistic. If in total we buy 500,000 a year, if in total we buy a million and a half or a million, we are magicians. That is very difficult, but we are going to make the effort,” said the minister in a debate in the Fifth Committee of the Senate.
López was summoned to a political control debate on land invasion and in this matter she assured that invasions have already dropped by 30 percent. “It’s not that the problem has been resolved, but current, at least from the Ministry of Agriculture, it did have a first impact.”
The minister also said that for now “there is no way to act on the drug dealers’ lands.”
That is why he said that they hope to use the Development Plan to solve current problems regarding the land, but, in any case, they are looking for emergency plans.
Regarding titling, he explained that point 1 of the Havana agreement gave 12 years to comply with seven million titles and three million distributed lands. “There are six, we have six left, of which four are ours and two of the next government.”
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Cecilia López Montaño.
He commented that the previous government reached 900,000 holders and on November 15 the Petro government will have lists of more than 680,000 and they hope to end the year with one million. “If we continue at this rate, it is very likely to be, if not 7 million, very close.”
Regarding the purchase of land, the senior official clarified that Fedegan’s offer, with whom the government agreed to buy millions of hectares, “opened a space and forced us to adopt a methodology not only to buy from Fedegán but also to buy land in general.”
He also revealed that they opened a process to buy 800,000 hectares and that different sectors have expressed their interest in selling to the Government.
But he did clarify that the issue is complex to carry out in four years, since the purchase and verification processes are long. But the Government will work to achieve the purpose.
TIME
