Peru accounts for 87 percent of the worldwide population of alpacas by totaling an inventory of 3,685,516 distributed along the Andean regions of the national territory, the country's Agriculture and Irrigation Ministry (Minagri) said Friday.
Minagri’s foremost specialist in camels breeding, Alfonso Atanasio, stressed Peru is also the world’s leading producer of alpaca fiber, followed by Bolivia where references indicate that 9.5 percent of the alpacas world population are located.
On the occasion of the National Alpaca Day being held today, the official highlighted the importance of the role played by this South American camelid as strategic resource to foster the economic development of rural towns in Peru’s hinterlands.
Speaking to Andina news agency from the sector’s headquarters in the nation’s capital Lima, Atanasio released accurate data of the alpaca population distributed in the highland regions of south and center Peru.
“The south-eastern Puno region is home of the largest number of alpacas in Peru, concentrating 1,459,903 of the total population,” he said, adding, “It is followed by the Cusco region with 545,454 and Arequipa with 468,392”.
In addition, the specialist from Minagri’s office of agricultural competitiveness said, there are 308,586 alpacas from Huancavelica 308,586; and 230,910 from Ayacucho, among others.
He said the Huacaya alpaca accounts for 80.4 percent of the country's alpaca population, followed by the Suri alpaca with 12.2 and the crossbreed with 9.2 percent.
"Minagri has included the alpaca in its multi-annual sectoral plan with the aim to improve the agriculture sector, by providing, first of all, support to the commercialization of alpaca fiber from small producers," Atanasio said.
In this regard, he went on to underlin that to date, the Ollanta Humala administration has invested more than 66 million soles (US$23.5 million) to boost commercialization of alpaca fiber.
(END) LIT/MAO/LOG
Published: 8/1/2014