The author delves into the problem of nutrition in Peru from preInca days to the present. In his research for the Incaic period he leans heavily on Garcilaso de la Vega, Luis Valcárcel, and Louis Baudin. From these and other sources he concludes that the diet of the common people left much to be desired and that deficiency diseases were rampant during that period. In a relatively short section on the colonial period he points out that, despite the new crops, animals, and farm equipment introduced by the Spaniards, their emphasis on mining meant the destruction of thriving agricultural communities. The new masters often forcibly recruited laborers to work not only in the mines but also on the great estates and in the sweat shops (obrajes).
This situation was merely aggravated after independence, when the formerly disgruntled creoles took control, working closely with European and North American capitalists. During this period more and more of the irrigable alluvial land along the coast was dedicated to the production of rice, sugar, and cotton. But these crops were destined for the foreign market, and the foreign exchange accruing from their sale abroad, concentrated in the hands of very few people, was largely spent or invested outside the country. Hence domestic purchasing power remained small and economic conditions for the masses very poor, for low domestic production and the importation of foodstuffs mean that a high percentage of average family budgets (44.8%) goes for the purchases of food and drink. And the writer cannot but comment bitterly on the fact that Peru, with millions of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition, currently exports vast quantities of fish meal to be used as stock feed in foreign countries. Almost every day newspapers highlight the nutritional crisis with screaming headlines: “Hunger is Peru’s Enemy Number One”; “Half of Peru is Victimized by Hunger”; “Thousands Suffering from Malnutrition Arrive at the Children’s Hospital. 20% Die of Starvation”; and so on.
Josué de Castro, author of the widely discussed “Geography of Hunger,” had promised to write a preface to this volume, but declined because of ill health. Like de Castro, Malpica is an idealist and a vigorous fighter for his ideals. He is author of “War to the Death Against the Latifundio,” and his “Agro Peruano” was awarded the Rivero Tremoville Prize by the Peruvian Association of Agronomy Engineers. A deputy to the National Congress and a writer in the tradition of José Carlos Mariátegui, Malpica has been in jail three times as a political prisoner. On the last occasion, in 1966, he formulated his ideas for this volume.
This review might be fittingly concluded with a quotation from his final pages: “The combination of domestic and external factors, vis-a-vis [society’s] unsatisfied necessities, has resulted in successive outbreaks of violence, ever more intense and frequent. The appearance of guerrillas during mid-1965 in the northern, central, and southern sectors of the country shows that groups decided on armed revolutionary action already exist. It is also a clear warning that the peasants are losing their patience, and that, faced with the alternative of dying of hunger or with weapons in their hands, they will choose the latter course” (p. 281).
