Peru’s Production Ministry (Produce) announced a contingency fund of 3.1 billion soles (US$ 1.1 billion) for proactively addressing the divergent climatic conditions caused by El Niño weather and carrying out aid interventions.
Piero Ghezzi, Produce’s head, noted his sector has a moderate forecast for a long dry spell or El Niño weather, while an ongoing monitoring is conducted by government researchers and meteorological experts.
“Although well-study phenomena related to El Niño weather pattern are taking place, such as anchovy migrating south to colder waters and its effects on fishery biomass,” the Peruvian minister said Tuesday.
He added, “We do not have yet highly certain forecasts which allow us to accurately measure the intensity of the upcoming El Niño event in the country”.
In that sense, the senior Ollanta Humala administration official stressed the meteorological reports reveals it is more likely to have a moderate system as the abnormal event is expected to be weaker than earlier predicted.
Nevertheless, Ghezzi recommended small and medium scale fishery businesses to maintain calm and to be prepared for difficult scenarios by taking into account the moderate outlook.
Attending the celebration-ceremony which marks the 50th anniversary of the Peruvian Sea Institute, or Imarpe, Ghezzi highlighted the importance of increasing the allocated budged for financing the entity’s research activities.
“In the last two years, Imarpe has seen a two-fold increase in funding for further research as the government aims to place the fishery industry as one of largest contributor to Peru's Gross Domestic Product," Ghezzi noted.
El Nino is an abnormal warming of the surface waters in the eastern Pacific off South America that causes the normally rainy weather in the western Pacific to shift further to the east.
This causes drought in parts of Australia, Southeast Asia and India as well as flooding in Chile and Peru, colder and wetter winters in the southern United States and fewer Atlantic hurricanes.
(END) AAC/AQR/LOG
Published: 7/1/2014