In his 25 years of life, Cerro Prieto has always stressed that he has a social commitment that allows them to transform communities. The heart of his work focuses on promoting the sustainable development of his neighboring communities. Víctor Cumba Sandoval, head of community and institutional relations of the agricultural company requires efforts to achieve that objective.
How are Cerro Prieto’s operations?
We are a business group that is dedicated to the planting and export of fruits such as blueberry, avocado and asparagus, products that are sent to the United States, Europe and Asia. Currently, we are in full crop campaign for blueberries and asparagus. We recently completed the avocado campaign that was very successful.
Within the environmental pillar, water resource works a lot.
Being an agricultural company, it is important to take care of the environment and above all to be very efficient with the use of water. We are convinced that agricultural development must go hand in hand with the growth of our communities. Therefore we have a very strong policy in the subject of sustainability focused on three pillars: education, health and environmental theme. For example, in education, we have a project of school gardens implemented in eight schools in the rural area of the province of Chepén and the Pacanga district to promote an environmental culture and healthy eating in children of initial, primary and secondary level. It is one of our flag projects. We also work for quality education. We have built two schools under the mechanism of works for taxes with an investment of S/5 million that benefit more than 200 children in the district of Pueblo Nuevo and Pacanga, of the Nueva Esperanza community. In addition, we develop digital connectivity in rural schools. In addition to this, we have a strategic alliance with Teach Peru to strengthen teaching skills.
What is the field of agricultural action?
It is Lambayeque and freedom. In La Libertad, in the province of Chepén, Pacanga district, near our operations. It is there where we develop sustainable agriculture.
How do they manage the use of water?
In Cerro Prieto we promote water solutions that transform agriculture.
We have two angles, the internal part and the external part, within them is the circular economy in agriculture. In our planting process we have managed to reuse drainage water, product of the El Niño phenomenon and the Yaku cyclone. This is an innovation project that aims to rescue and reuse it in our planting process. Currently, we have been able to reuse more than 731,000 m³ of water that have been used in more than 90 hectares of cultivation, both avocado and blueberry. The project has just gained recognition in the AGAP sustainability contest. We also have the domestic wastewater treatment plant, which has a capacity of 650 m³ daily and the PTARI, which are industrial water treatment plants that we reuse to water the green areas of our fund. For us every drop of water is very important.
What is the work on the external side?
We have an environmental culture that is not only taught at home, but also transfer it to our communities, we develop shared value projects. For example, since 2018 we developed more than 28 hydraulic infrastructure improvement projects within the Jequetepeque Valley.
It consists of improving gates, channels, water shots that allow the optimization of water resource in our traditional farmers and crops such as rice, corn. We hit more than 12 thousand farmers and more than 13 thousand hectares of cultivation.
Tell us about those 28 projects
The improvement of hydraulic infrastructure, we have been developing in alliance with our stakeholders. To achieve sustainability we work in a tripartite way: Cerro Prieto as a private company, local or regional governments and the community. One of the emblematic projects we have is the coating of two channels, Tambo and Molino, each 5 kilometers. A total of 10 kilometers of channel coating that was done through the mechanism of works for taxes with the Regional Government of Liberty. The project has allowed to optimize water resource in 95%, 5% is lost by evaporization. When this channel was rustic, it was lost between 50% and 60% water by filtration. The approximate investment cost was S/10 million.
And on the social side, what are they doing?
We are convinced that agricultural development has to go hand in hand with the growth of our communities. The best tool of a good relationship with them is to be close, to have transparent communication, thus we generate confidence. That is why it is important that projects are articulated in a tripartite way. The communities are represented by the leaders of the communities, by the Board of Users, Commissions of irrigators, associations of the Jequetepeque Valley. We work hand in hand with them, knowing their real need we can carry out projects that directly impact on the social and economic. If we optimize the use of water resource, the cost is much lower and as many fertilizers are not lost as before. All this helps develop sustainable agriculture.
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