PERUVIAN President Pedro Castillo has said the country’s land-reform measures are part of a new agricultural revolution that will end the exploitation of small farmers.

Addressing the “sisters and brothers of the field” on Monday, Mr Castillo said: “We have put an end to the oblivion they were in.

“The government, from today, is once again at the service of the small farmers of our country. Today they should occupy the place they always should have.”

Mr Castillo said that farmers had been pushed to the margins for decades and announced a range of measures that include the establishment of an agrarian civil service.

This would see a programme whereby thousands of university students will support farmers as they develop their land, in what has been described as Peru’s “second agrarian reform.”

At a rally on Sunday to mark agrarian reforms introduced by General Juan Velasco Alvarado, the Marxist-Leninist leader declared that the new measures “do not seek to expropriate land or take away property rights from anyone.”

In 1969 the left-wing president had issued bonds as compensation for land expropriation and its redistribution among peasants and campesinos, many of whom were organised in co-operatives.

“Today we are going to promote the farmers’ rights and development ... At last, Peru stands up to end exploitation and inequality in agriculture,” Mr Castillo said.

He announced the creation of a Department of Agrarian and Rural Development and said that women were to be at the centre of the agrarian reforms.

Mr Castillo, who won a narrow victory in June’s presidential elections, added that his administration would set up an agrarian development bank “with loans under favourable conditions.”

The government would also invest in infrastructure, including electricity and roads, along with the construction of a phosphate-based fertiliser plant and a programme of public purchases of goods generated by family farming, he said.