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In Peru, imports of maize flour increased by 345% in the first half of 2019 compared with the previous year. A man cleans corn at the Mayoreo Mercado wholesale market in Man

Gross domestic product, consumer price index, unemployment rate, key interest rates, balance of payments ... Economists do not lack indicators for their analyzes. In Peru, here is added to this non-exhaustive list of corn flour. This is at first sight unorthodox, but it is a very relevant indicator for measuring the impact of the Venezuelan crisis.

With our correspondent in the region, Éric Samson

When Christopher Columbus landed in 1492 in the Caribbean, we know that the natives offered him an arepa. This is to say if this grilled corn cake, fried or baked, is not only part of the gastronomy but of Latin American history.

Archaeologists have also discovered traces of corn cultivation dating back 3,000 years. The pre-Columbian people were pounding it until it was reduced to mush, which they then baked on a clay board, the aripo, which may have given its name to the arepa.

If we expect, in France, that we serve our "daily bread" in Colombia and Venezuela, it is rather the arepa. And visibly, Venezuelan migrants do not intend to change menus: Peru's maize flour imports increased by 345% in the first half of 2019 compared to the previous year.

Until then, the country was producing enough for domestic consumption. But that was before the arrival of 860,000 Venezuelan migrants , according to the latest official figures. Some 6,295 tons of maize flour were imported from January to July for a total of 6 million euros.

These imports come from the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica and especially Colombia. But not Venezuela . One more proof of the catastrophic situation of agriculture in this country, and one more reason to make corn flour an economic indicator no more stupid than the others.