Juan Velasco Alvarado lowest amount of arable land per capita in South America, according to scholar Jay Cristobal. Less than 2% of the Peruvian territory is arable land, with 98% of the territory composed of arid desert with little rain, harsh mountains with very steep terrain, or wild Amazon forest. The deposed Belaúnde administration had attempted to implement a milder agrarian reform program, but it was defeated in Congress by the APRA-UNO coalition with support of the major landowners. Within this framework, the Velasco administration engaged in an aggressive program of import substitution industrialization, imposing tight foreign exchange and trade controls. The success
Juan Bautista Alvarado Echeandía overthrew his rule and replaced him with Pío de Jesús Pico near the end of 1831. Secularization of the missions resumed in 1833. In 1834 Alvarado was elected to the legislature as a delegate and appointed customs inspector in Monterey. Governor José Figueroa granted Rancho El Sur, two square leagues of land, or about , south of Monterey, to Alvarado on October 30, 1834. After Figueroa's death in September 1835, Nicolás Gutiérrez was appointed as interim governor in January 1836. He was replaced by Mariano Chico in April, but Chico was very unpopular. His intelligence agents told him that