The Agriculture sector has stagnated because land is highly under utilized, poorly managed and farming methods are still the same as the way they were a hundred years ago.  While our cows are grass feed and free range (good for them and us), we produce only 50% of the milk we consume and there is not one concentrated dairy operation here in Panama.  That may change soon and will be an example of what can be done in most of the other Ag business’s  as well.

Unlike other sectors of Panama’s dynamic economy, agriculture has not progressed in the last decade.

In the last decade, the number of hectares devoted to agriculture has reduced by 70,687, while the number of producers has only increased by 6% to a total of 246,820.

Meanwhile, food imports are now twice that of domestic production, for example in the case of products such as corn or rice.

The outlook is grim, according to Virgilio Saldaña, president of the Producers Association in Tierras Altas in Chiriqui, who says that producers believe that they cannot compete with imported products such as potatoes, onions, rice, corn and other fruits and vegetables.

Meanwhile Oscar Garcia, director of Competition an the Consumer Protection Authority considers that the solution cannot be to cut imports, but instead to “strongly encourage production, and favor the producer.”

Source: laestrella.com.pa