Only two percent of the territory of Peru consists of arable land. Sixteen million people depend on the production of about three million hectares of land, which means that on the average only 1800 square metres is available per person. It is clear that Peru is one of the poorest countries of the world as far as available arable land is concerned and consequently it will have to drastically increase its agricultural production per unit area or import large quantities of agricultural products to feed its rapidly growing population.