Agriculture Minister Osmar Benítez says that the 6.5% increase the Central Bank reported for the farming sector evidences the dynamic growth of agriculture in the Dominican Republic. He says that there are more than 10,800 million tareas (1 tarea = 629 square meters) planted of food products with the backing, promotion and sponsorship of the Ministry of Agriculture and other government institutions.
In an interview for El Caribe media group, the government officer mentioned that in the farming province of San Juan de la Maguana alone, 120,000 tareas were planted when he began his term in August 2018, and today 180,000 tareas are planted. He said when he started out Constanza had 3,000 tareas of garlic planted, and today has 7,000 tareas.
He highlighted that the Ministry of Agriculture has underway an intense program to improve rural roads to facilitate the distribution of products from the farms to markets. With seven months on the job, he said the Ministry has repaired 1,800 km of rural roads nationwide.
He also spoke of a program whereby the Ministry of Agriculture has provided free assistance to small farmers to prepare their farms with up to 50 tareas.
He said funds available to farmers have now increased from RD$6.7 billion at the Banco Agricola to RD$28 billion at present.
He told El Caribe that the Ministry has also strengthened regional offices nationwide and these now have improved mobilization with attention to a monthly fuel allotment for Ministry of Agriculture vehicles. He said that all ministry employees are now making a minimum wage of RD$10,000 a month. He said the funds have come from an institutional restructuring.
Benítez visited the El Caribe media group accompanied by the other main officers of the Medina administration farming cabinet. These are: Carlos Segura Fóster, general manager of the Banco Agrícola; Casimiro Ramos, director of the Fondo Especial para el Desarrollo Agropecuario (FEDA); Jorge Radhamés Zorrilla Ozuna, director general of the Instituto Nacional de Estabilización de Precios (Inespre), Claudio Jiménez, director del Mercado Dominicano de Abastos de Alimentos Agropecuarios (Mercadom). Only missing was Emilio Toribio Olivo, director of the Instituto Agrario Dominicano (IAD).
Benitez is a former executive president of the Dominican Agribusiness Council. He says now as Minister of Agriculture he is having the opportunity to put into practice many of the recommendations he had previously made to the government.
Benítez is himself a farm sector businessman. He is a plantain producer for Frito Lay and studied farming at the Instituto Superior de Agricultura (ISA) in Santiago from 1972-1975. He is also a graduate in food engineering from the PUCMM in Santiago.
He estimated that in the first year of the Medina administration food production was at 115 million quintals, and as of 2018 this had increased to 158.1 million quintals.
Read more in Spanish:
El Caribe
Ministry of Agriculture
10 January 2019
