Agriculture in Pelinai (Pacifica)

Agriculture in Pelinai
Agricultural land area (% of land area)	18,898,700 acres (2023) (25.1% of total area)
Primary agricultural products	Corn, soybeans, fruits, pecans, roses, cotton, cinammon, peppers, wheat, tea leaves, poultry, pork, milk & dairy products
Economic participation
Contribution to GDP	5.2% (2022)

Agriculture in Pelinai comprises a significant portion of the primary sector of the Pelinese economy, along with other industries such as fishing, aquaculture, forestry, and mining, and functions as a major driver of economic activity in rural areas of Pelinai. It encompasses activities including the cultivation of cereals, fruit plants & fruit trees, vegetables, nuts, and spices, as well as the raising of livestock for meat, eggs, milk, and other animal products. Land used for agriculture excluding forestry accounts for 25.1% of all land in Pelinai, with approximately 18.9 million acres of land under cultivation in 2023; most of this land area lies in various areas of humid subtropical climate with fertile soil and multiple rivers, resulting in a large proportion of heat- and moisture-tolerant crops such as corn, citrus fruits, tea, and upland cotton.

Pelinai is a significant global producer of corn, citrus fruit, green beans and butter beans, cinnamon, peppers, prunus fruit such as cherries, peaches and apricots, pecans, tea, raspberries, squash and pumpkins, strawberries, sweet potatoes, and watermelons, and other produce, as well as broilers, pork, and eggs. It is also renowned as one of the world’s largest growers of roses for production of rose water, rose oil, and other products.

Intensive efforts to improve the productivity of agriculture in Pelinai have greatly increased crop yields and decreased labor intensiveness of farming in some areas, but difficult mountainous terrain and the need for hand-picking of certain important crops like strawberries has somewhat limited the impact of traditional agricultural mechanization. Newer innovations such as genetically modified crops have also seen growing usage alongside conventional pesticides and other control measures to further improve yields and limit the prevalence of plant pests such as phytophthora, the spread of which is often favored by the prevailing humidity and high temperatures of the Pelinese climate.

Production

Crops

Crop	2023 production (tonnes)	Notes
Apricots
Bananas
Blackcurrants
Cabbages
Cinnamon
Cherries
Cucumbers
Corn
Cotton		Mostly upland cotton.
Grapes		Almost exclusively of the muscadine variety, especially scuppernongs.
Lemons
Oranges
Peaches
Peanuts
Pecans
Peppers
Potatoes
Raspberries
Rice
Roses
Soybeans
Squash		Includes pumpkins, zucchini, and other squash varieties.
Strawberries
Sugarcane		Primarily ribbon cane.
Tea
Tomatoes
Watermelons
Wheat

Livestock

Animal type	Inventory (nearest 100 counted on January 1 2024)
	2020	2021	2022	2023
Alligators
Broiler chickens	1,892,184,200	1,940,418,400	2,100,883,900	2,190,473,200
Cattle (beef)	372,000	361,900	387,300	392,500
Cattle (dairy)	698,800	713,200	716,500	718,000
Ducks
Bullfrogs
hogs	15,774,100	15,783,900	15,991,000	16,102,900
Turkeys	70,383,200	66,419,600	67,236,200	69,729,400

Agriculture by region

Marahu River Valley

The Marahu River Valley is an extremely humid river delta and surrounding region situated in southwestern Pelinai bordering the Seiko Sea, comprising the eastern two thirds of the federal region of Samara and the western half of Loshkaria. Most of Pelinai’s significant growing zones for roses, such as the Hanairo Valley, are situated in the larger Marahu River Valley region. Tree fruits of the genus prunus, primarily peaches, apricots, and cherries, are also grown in abundance on the plains surrounding the Marahu River, along with blackcurrants and corn. Crops favoring or otherwise resistant to extremely high soil moisture are typically grown to the south of Tsugunare, in the delta itself, while other crops are grown on the surrounding plains regions.

Eastern Coastal Plain

The Eastern Coastal Plain is a large section of coastal subtropical plains extending from far southern Stelossia to central Sevaria, bordered in the east by the Eastern Ocean and in the west by a stretch of highlands marking the eastern edge of the Yukisora Mountains; its close proximity to the ocean moderates yearly temperatures, while its location east of the Yukisora Mountains also facilitates greater precipitation. The primary crop grown here is corn, with the eastern plain region holding status as the most significant corn growing region in Pelinai by tonnes of corn cultivated per year; other significant crops include pecans, assorted tree fruits, and vegetables such as squash, cabbage, collard, and cucumbers.

Government policy

Subsidies

The government of Pelinai maintains multiple agricultural subsidy programs covering different sectors of the wider agricultural industry, typically focusing on either subsidizing the acquisition of capital (such as farmland, agricultural machinery, and other productivity-improving goods) by farms or by supporting prices paid to farmers for their crops through various means such as price support. The number of subsidies distributed has increased over time in order to help maintain the economic viability of certain domestic agricultural sectors, such as cereal farming, while other sectors such as roses and fruit trees remain internationally competitive without subsidies. The Pelinese Ministry of Agriculture plans a portion of its agricultural subsidies in cooperation with neighboring countries through the Bailtemmic Cooperation Organization.

Subsidies for the acquisition of productive goods by farms in Pelinai are typically given as low-interest and interest-free loans for the purchase of machinery, the construction of land improvements like irrigation infrastructure and new farm buildings, and the purchase of new land to be cultivated, the origination and management of which is delegated to the state-operated Agricultural Bank of Pelinai. Other, less significant subsidies of this type administered in Pelinai include direct payments for capital improvements and discounts on farm machinery produced by state-owned manufacturers.

Price-supporting subsidies to Pelinese farmers take multiple forms. The most common and preferred method exercised by the Ministry of Agriculture is direct government purchase of surplus produce which would otherwise sell below the target price, which is then used by the government for things like school lunches, military consumption, and foreign aid. Other measures such as reducing oversupply by offering direct payments to farmers in exchange for lowering production are also occasionally utilized, along with direct payments to make up any difference between the market price and target price of certain subsidized agricultural products.

Modernization

Pesticides

Modern industrial pesticides have been in use throughout Pelinai since the 1940s, with widespread deployment beginning in the early 1960s. While all types of pesticide are used, the most commercially important types include insecticide to suppress corn borers and fungicides to suppress a variety of pathogens. Fungicides in particularly are used extensively across Pelinai in the cultivation of herbaceous plants and trees due to the hot and humid climate, which favors the proliferation of plant pathogenic fungi, that prevails throughout most of the country.

The usage of certain organophosphorus-based pesticides, especially those of the thiophosphonate type, is controversial in Pelinai due to their deployment as chemical weapons during the Pelinese Civil War. Manufacturing of thiophosphonate-based insecticides in Pelinai continues as of 2023, though alternative compounds offering similar effectiveness are being explored in research.

GM crops

Farms in Pelinai have made extensive usage of GM crops since their introduction into commercial usage, with 31% of total planted area in Pelinai and the majority of the annual harvest of certain crops such as corn now consisting of GM varieties. The first introduction of genetically modified plants to commercial usage in Pelinai occurred in 1996, when a blight-resistant variety of potato was planted as a pilot project funded by the Pelinese federal government to evaluate means of increasing crop yields. Following successful tests and the health & safety certification of multiple GM crop varieties, farmers have received government encouragement and subsidies to facilitate their wide adoption. A government survey of farmers in Samara in 2017 indicated that the most common reason for adopting GM crops is to increase resistance to pests and disease, followed by increased yields and then by improvements to produce quality.

Pelinai is a major global center for the development of new GM crop varieties, particularly those with increased resistance to plant diseases. Current areas of research focus include protection against phytophthora pathogens, laurel wilt, and tobacco mosaic virus.