More on Pucallpa

Pucallpa is hot. But I guess I'll get used to it.

Slept a little bit late to catch up on what I missed the other night--felt good to sleep in a bed. Got up and got the desayuno Americano up on the Plaza de Armas--apparently, Americans eat fried eggs and french bread. All in all, not the best I've had. Much more entertaining when they get it completely wrong.

In general, breakfast options in Guatemala tend to be better.

After breakfast, got in an interview with the folks at the provincial office. I was surprised to find that the huge provincial capitol building holds only two people involved in agriculture--surprising, since this municipality is right on the regression line for the provision of agricultural services. They described a number of types of training the province sponsors for agricultural producers, but admitted to me that, basically, the province isn't as heavily involved in agriculture as the region.

So I went out this afternoon to the regional government's ministry of agriculture compound. It's on the outskirts of the city, out on a dirt road. Wasn't able to interview the director, but did meet with the head of the local farmers' union (does that make him the representative of the Peruvian grange?) He gave me his spiel for about an hour, which was great. It does really sound as though the region has gotten into agriculture, big time, and maybe the result is that the regional government satisfies these demands, while the local governments play other roles in this region(?)

In general, agriculture here appears to be much larger-scale. Producers down here seem to produce one or a small number of crops in large quantities, and many of them seem to have very large farms. Rice, palm oil, and other staples are produced in great quantities.

Going to try back tomorrow, to try to catch the director. And tomorrow morning, think I'm going to go to the province again, to try to catch the participatory budget guy.