BOGOTA, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Colombia’s authorities has reached a cope with cattle farmers to purchase 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land, earmarked for poor rural farmers to push agrarian reform aimed toward boosting meals manufacturing and tackling poverty, the minister of agriculture mentioned on Friday.
“We have reached complete settlement, that is an historic act, the third element of the agrarian reform is starting,” Agriculture Minister Cecilia Lopez mentioned in an announcement, including the deal can be signed subsequent week by President Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftist chief.
The price of the acquisition and the way it will likely be financed weren’t disclosed.
Petro is pushing agrarian reform to fulfill a part of a peace settlement signed in 2016 between the then authorities and the now-demobilized FARC guerrilla group that ended the rebels’ participation in Colombia’s inner armed battle, which has run for nearly six a long time and has left a minimum of 450,000 lifeless.
Final month, Petro proposed altering the nation’s medium-term fiscal framework to tackle inner debt of some 60 trillion pesos ($13 billion) to purchase land and promote it to poor farmers affected by violence at below-market costs.
The deal comes amid a spate of land invasions, which the federal government has condemned.
Jose Felix Lafaurie, president of Colombia’s Fedegan cattle ranchers affiliation, mentioned the deal was reached in lower than a month.
“We have reached an awesome settlement that can carry plenty of tranquility to the agricultural sector,” Lafaurie mentioned, including that the deal will assist consolidate a rural center class that can assist reply to Colombia’s food-based challenges.
The agrarian reform may also see titles for 600,000 hectares awarded to farmers, whereas one other 125,000 hectares confiscate from accused drug traffickers can be rented, the agriculture minister added.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Enhancing by Aurora Ellis)
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