10 September 2010

PERU: Water Shortages Threaten Agriculture Growth.

REUTERS/ By Emily Schmall/
      The World Bank and its International Finance Corporation are involved in projects in northern Peru to use water from the Amazon to irrigate fields for cash crops.
      Peru is the world's top asparagus exporter, shipping $389 million in 2009, and the third-largest producer of artichokes. Its farm sector has grown rapidly, helped by laws allowing bigger land holdings and free trade agreements with the United States and Asian countries.      But water is becoming scarcer as Andean glaciers retreat.