[inglorious]

From reading some recent posts on this forum most people here appear to believe that imminent doom isn't on the horizon and some/many believe that there will be a slow but steady decline in conditions.

How do people see that playing out in their neck of the woods? What's your predictions for the next 1-5 years?

I live in Peru so my take is probably pretty different.

Here's my view of things,

Over the next 5 years the world economy will continue to wallow, it will experience low growth, commodity prices (minerals) won't grow or could even fall further and developing economies that rely on them will be hit. Not too sure about oil prices, I'd lean towards a recovery back to previous levels. Places like the U.S will see lower growth than they are getting, around 1.5% a year.

In Peru I foresee low growth, not too hard to predict as we're already down to below 4% from an average 6-7% following the crisis. Not enough jobs will be created to support the young population and social unrest will occur. We'll see a spike in unrest next year leading up to the presidential election.

Wages will continue to stagnate and this coupled with decreased employment opportunities will result in increased delinquency amongst young people, older generations who are more accustomed to hard times will weather the change better.

Migration will increase from the countryside to provincial cities, from the provinces to the capital and finally from the capital to abroad.

Tourism to Machu Picchu will decline - I can't believe it hasn't declined yet. Latin American tourists have been replacing European tourists, American tourists have continued to increase though. A major factor I believe will cause the decline is airfares will become more expensive, Peru is also becoming a more expensive destination year on year.

All in all, definitely no collapse but the trend is changing towards negative.

[Shaved Monkey]

Air is the major way Peru exports its asparagus too,lack of water will be a problem with that too.

[inglorious]

Water's definitely a problem with Asparagus. It's produced in the desert regions, mostly around Nazca I think. They occasionally run stories about the problems the farmers are running in to regarding that.

In reality pretty much all of Peru's commercial agriculture is based on the coast, i.e. the desert. The rest of the country just isn't fit for large scale farming, the Andes don't provide enough large flat spaces and the jungle is a jungle, at least for the time being.

Peru doesn't generate much income from exporting agricultural products (compared to minerals anyway) so that wouldn't affect the economy too much. Domestic consumption is produced within the country itself, some things like rice are imported but most of the other staples like potatoes, beans, corn are all grown close to consumption.