by Corinne Valdivia and Christian Jetté
San José Llanga, the face of diversity and dynamic technologies
Household strategies in San José Llanga: clusters and findings
Table 1: Land use patterns in San José Llanga, 1993
Table 2: Cluster Variables in the Productive Group in San José Llanga: 1993 and 1995
Table 3: Income Sources Consumption and Diversity in San José Llanga: 1993 and 1995
Findings for Semi-arid Andean Production Systems and Recommendations
Recognition of the limits and increasing degradation of highly productive regions has drawn attention to the potential of fragile lands in semiarid and mountain regions of the developing world (Graham-Tomasi, 1991; Scherr and Hazell, 1993). A new approach to agricultural development and technology design is required for these regions (Scherr and Hazell, 1993). The semiarid and arid highland tropics of the Andean region are characterized by diverse agroecological and climatic conditions. Farmers have been able to persist in this setting for centuries through various forms of social and economic relations.
To contribute to the welfare of poor rural households the Small Ruminant Collaborative Research Support Program (SR-CRSP) initiated a research program in the central highlands of Bolivia in 1993. The purpose of the research was to develop a methodological framework for understanding the forces contributing to environmental degradation in crop livestock systems in semiarid, fragile environments (Ellis, J. 1993). An interdisciplinary research approach in the social and biological sciences was developed, with periodicity informing our assessment of producer strategies and technological innovations. Periodicity (Coppock, 1994) offers a dynamic image of the social, economic, and natural environments in fragile lands (Valdivia and Markowitz, 1995). Rather than focusing on the fixed attributes of users, the system of production is seen as intrinsically in flux, with windows of opportunity for certain technologies appearing and receding. The timing is the result of interactions between climate, institutions, economic and policy conditions, population trends and migration, as these interact with the decisions makers.
This paper focuses on peasant households
strategies in an Andean community, and the social economic and environmental
forces that shaped them in the last thirty years in their interaction with
new technologies. The next section discusses the role of diversification
in peasant household production systems in semi-arid environments, and
in particular in the Andean region. A brief picture of the Andean peasant
community where SR-CRSP research took place, and overview of three main
technological experiences in the last thirty years are presented in the
third section. Section IV identifies the strategies pursued by peasant
households in this community using cluster analysis in two years of climatic
perturbation, a year of slightly below average rainfall with frost (1993),
and the third worst year of drought, delayed rains, and frosts of the last
eighteen (1995). The last section discusses the findings and lessons for
technology design and development to increase food and economic security
in fragile semi-arid Andean crop-livestock systems.
Peasant households in fragile environments
Risk
and Diversification
Low income peasant households in semi-arid
and arid environments of the Tropics make their production and consumption
decisions under uncertain and risky conditions, characterized by partial
market integration and climatic perturbations (Fafchamps, 1992; Ellis,
F. 1993). Losses in production and income have a direct impact on food
security in low income rural households. Complex economic and social relations
are developed to protect against risk, and to take advantage of an heterogenous
resource base in agropastoral communities. Households engage in multiple
economic activities that are not perfectly correlated to reduce risk (
Walker and Jodha, 1986; Reardon Delgado and Matlon, 1992; Bromley and Chavas,
1989). Risk is managed ex-ante by diversifying the economic portfolio to
smooth income throughout the year, and ex-post through loss management
strategies aimed at smoothing consumption. Asset liquidation, income transfers,
off-farm employment and temporary migration are examples of the latter
(Morduch, 1995; Townsend, 1995; Reardon et al., 1992). Livestock play an
important role in managing risk and securing food and resources for investments
(Reardon et al, 1992; Valdivia et al. 1996).
Although diversification may reflect the struggle to survive in a risky environment, it may also be an indicator of a dynamic agriculture (Reardon Delgado and Matlon, 1992, p.268) where resources are fully utilized in markedly seasonal environments (Valdivia et al, 1996; Ellis, 1993). Others find that new commercial activities (cash crops) lead to specialization as von Braun Hotchkiss and Immink (1989), found in the humid tropics of Guatemala.
The Andes
Peasant households in the Andean region
have a long tradition of diversifying (Martinez-Castilla, 1992; Kervyn,
1988; Hopkins and Barrantes, 1987) in their adaptation to environmental
perturbations, historical processes (Cotlear, 1989; Kervyn, 1988; Jetté,
1993), and diverse agro-ecological conditions (soils, topography and climate).
Studies of technological change in peasant economies of the Peruvian mountains
show that even with more intensive agriculture and higher incomes there
is no tendency to greater specialization in more profitable crops and activities
(Kervyn, 1988). Non market relations such as reciprocity, kin relations
and networks (Alberti and Mayer, 1974; Carter and Albó, 1988; Caro,
1993) play an important role in household persistence by facilitating access
to land, labor and animals without cash outlays (Markowitz and Jetté
). These relations also contribute to consumption smoothing through income
transfers when idiosyncratic risk events take place, as found in other
regions of the world (Rosenzweig and Binswanger, 1993).
San
José Llanga, the face of diversity and dynamic technologies
San José Llanga is an agropastoral
peasant community, 116 Km south of La Paz (Bolivia's capital city). Located
in the Central Altiplano, between 3,725 and 3786 mts. above sea level,
is an area of high degree of abiotic perturbations such as periodic drought,
frequent frosts, occasional floods and seasonal wind erosion (Washington-Allen,
1993). Mean annual precipitation between 1943 and 1990 at Patacamaya Research
Station was 402 with a coefficient of variation of 31%, and a mean annual
temperature of 10.4 Celsius. The closest weekly market is 16 km away. Approximately
one hundred households distributed between six human settlements live in
San José: Callunimaya, Sabilani, Barrio, Tholatia, Incamaya and
Espiritu Wilki. Land use distribution of the 7,200 Has in 1993 consisted
of 48% covered by native grasses, 31% in fallow, 6% with cultivated forages,
5% with food crops, and the rest, 10%, occupied by buildings, rivers, roads,
and uncultivated land (Massy and Valdivia, 1995).
The agropastoral production system combines sheep and cattle herding on natural rangeland with crop production. The main food and forage crops are potato, quinoa, barley and alfalfa. Several varieties indigenous and new, of these and other crops are planted in spatially dispersed small plots of land. Fallow agricultural land, crop residues and forage crops are important supplements to grazing (Valdivia et al., 1995). Potato, quinoa and llamas are the main indigenous crops and livestock in the region. Criollo (adapted) sheep and cattle, together with barley cultivation, exist since the colonial period, and progressively displaced llama production.
San José is 18 km away from one of Bolivia's agricultural experiment stations. During the sixties extension workers introduced new potato varieties, and popularized the use of tractors, fertilizers and pesticides. New breeds of sheep along with alfalfa were introduced to improve both meat and wool production. Criollo breeds are smaller and more resilient than the improved. As Bolivian textile firms went bankrupt during the eighties wool became less important.
Although cattle have been in the village for almost as long as sheep, their purpose in the past was primarily as draft animals. A severe drought in 1983 convinced many farmers of the need for irrigation and diversification into dairy and alfalfa production. Three events facilitate the adoption o dairy technologies in the late eighties: the introduction of an extension program that organizes production and milk delivery, Fomento Lechero (FL), the construction of a road from Patacamaya to SJL, and agreements with the parastatal dairy program, Planta de Industrializacion Lechera (PIL) to collect milk and support the price.
Precipitation varies between and within years, with very low rainfall from April through August. Frosts are considered the main danger for food crops. Potato cultivation has one possibility in two of completing its normal cycle, while quinoa has six possibilities in ten (Le Tacon et al, 1992). Notable differences in the incidence of frost risks have been found within the community. The construction of a 23 km. irrigation canal by community members at the beginning of the 1980s to deal with drought, brings water from the Desaguadero river (the main Central Altiplano stream) to a small portion of San José and four communities at the end of the dry season. This is used for alfalfa crops which supplement grazing on natural rangeland. The water is causing salinity. Alfalfa is also grown in fluviosols along the banks of a small seasonal river that crosses the north part of the territory.
Household
strategies in San José Llanga: clusters and findings
Two production and income surveys were
conducted in the community, one in 1993 an agricultural rainfall year of
388.5 mm, and in 1995 with 241mm. Both were years with frost during the
growing season, and delayed rains in 1995. The first survey was applied
to a randomly selected group of 45 households. The second was applied to
the same families, though six had migrated, and were substituted by six
new families.
The criteria
Groups of producers with similar strategies
based on access and quality of resources, labor and age of household members,
wealth, off farm employment, and animal species were developed through
cluster analysis(1). To identify distinct
sets of household strategies, the following variables were selected:
1. Life cycle, captured through the age of male head of household, and family labor available (Valdivia and Jette, 1996); 2. Quality of land included planted and utilized forage hectares of alfalfa and barley; 3. Differences in livestock technology included number of improved sheep belonging to the family, including crossbred animals, and number of criollo sheep belonging to the family capturing indigenous technology; 4. Number of improved cattle that belong to the family, both adult and young animals, an indicator of commercial production and technology adoption; 5. Number of criollo adult and young cattle that belong to the family, reflect indigenous technology; 6. Wages, a strategy of off-farm diversification indicative of market integration; 7. Consumption, the sum of in-kind and cash income from food crops (potatoes, quinoa, wheat, grain barley, faba beans), sheep consumption and sales, as well as sheep milk, cattle milk sales, wages and other income such as handcrafts and sales of thola (wood shrub) and manure, to determine differences between groups regarding welfare; and 8. Net income from cattle through the sales of live animals, reflecting households ability to capitalize and reinvest. Land property was not included because even though property differences existed, access was similar at differing income levels (Markowitz and Jetté).
Strategies
in 1993 and 1995
Cluster analysis grouped the households
in two large sets, both in 1993 and 1995: the "elderly" and the "productive",
with age and access to labor being the defining variables. Table 1 presents
the land use characteristics of these groups in 1993. The "productive",
households in their middle years with access to family labor planted more
plots of food crops such as potatoes, quinoa, barley, faba beans and canawa.
All households planted potato, the basic food staple of the Andes, combining
indigenous and new varieties. Their purpose is to satisfy primarily their
needs. Main differences between the "improved" (households adopting new
technologies) and the "criollo" (those that use indigenous technologies),
were forage area planted to alfalfa and barley, irrigated lands, and fallow
fields in 1993. Studies in the area also found that fluviosols and
irrigated land under cultivation are more representative of distinct producer
strategies. Similar findings were obtained in Peru (Hopkins and Barrantes,
1987). These lands are almost exclusively destined to forages in San José.
This is consistent with the fact that animal numbers and species reflect
more accurately the intensity of agricultural activity and wealth levels.
The majority of the households in the "improved" group were located in
Tholatia, while the "criollo" group was located in Espiritu Willqui, zone
furthest from the main town and of poorer land resources and more unimproved
range lands. The "elderly" for the most part have bequeathed their land
and animals, but do plant potato (table 1). Standard deviations in parenthesis
underline the variability surrounding land use patterns, especially range
land, fallow crop land, and renting of land within the community.
Table 2 shows the means and standard deviations of the variables used in cluster analysis. The "productive" groups pursued different strategies in 1993 and 1995. Both improved and criollo sheep are the domain of women in the community in terms of decisions, labor and income control (Valdivia et al, 1995). Sheep are the basic source of protein (Murillo and Markowitz, 1995), and are sold to purchase food, school supplies and other household goods. Relative prices of improved to criollo were 1.38 and 1.7 in 1993 and 1995 respectively. An increase in improved sheep in both groups of "productive" farmers takes place between 1993 and 1995. The "improved" group of households increased the number of livestock, especially sheep, in absolute terms. The "criollo" group also increased the number of improved animals, though partial trade off with criollo animals took place. The most notable change in the "criollo" group is the increase in
Table 1: Land use patterns in San José Llanga, 1993
| Variable/Groups | The Productive Years | The Elderly | ||
| Improved | Criollo | Couples | Singles | |
| Potatoes (has) | 1.1 (0.5) | 0.7 (0.5) | 0.6 (0.3) | 0.6 (0.7) |
| Quinoa (has) | 1.0 (0.8) | 0.7 (0.9) | 0.3 (0.2) | 0.3 (0.4) |
| Food Crops (has) | 3.3 (1.6) | 2.5 (2.1) | 1.5 (0.8) | 1.1 (1.1) |
| Food Crops (plots) | 6.2 (2.1) | 5.2 (2.8) | 4.4 (2.6) | 2.8 (1.0) |
| Alfalfa (has) | 3.3 (2.3) | 0.8 (0.9) | 0.6 (0.7) | 0.3 (0.4) |
| Forage barley (has) | 1.6 (1.2) | 0.8 (0.8) | 0.2 (0.2) | 0.2 (0.2) |
| Irrigation (has) | 1.4 (1.4) | 0.3 (0.7) | 0.4 (0.7) | 0.9 (1.9)* |
| Land renting (has) | 1.4 (2.6) | 1.9 (2.3) | 0.5 (0.8) | 0.6 (0.7) |
| Rangeland (has) | 5.6 (6.6) | 6.1 (9.0) | 1.0 (1.0) | 3.1 (3.5) |
| Fallow (has) | 11 (9.6) | 5.3 (5.5) | 2.0 (2.0) | 6.7 (9.3) |
| N sample size | 15 | 14 | 8 | 8 |
| Zones: most frequent | Tholatia (6) | Espiritu Willqui (5) | Sabilani (4) | Sabilani (3) |