Strategies for Agricultural Subsistence in South America

1
Strategies for Agricultural Subsistence in South
America

• South America is one of the worlds foremost
  centers of plant and animal domestication

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Strategies for Agricultural Subsistence in South
America

• Most important contribution
• tubers numerous potato species, manioc
  (cassava), etc.
• Also peanuts, pineapple, some chili peppers, a
  squash, quinoa, and tobacco

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Strategies for Agricultural Subsistence in South
America

• Fruits and Nuts
• cherimoya, the Brazil nut, papaya, prickly pear,
  guava, cashews
• Other important crops came from Middle America
  maize, squash, sweet potatoes, cacao

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Strategies for Agricultural Subsistence in South
America

• Carl Sauer hypothesized that the major center of
  plant domestication in SA was located in
  Columbia
• More recently plant domestication thought to be
  more widespread, non-centered

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Strategies for Agricultural Subsistence in South
America

• Agricultural villages of the Valdivia culture of
  coastal Ecuador cultivated maize on rive plains
  (5,000 b.p.)
• Even earlier agricultural villages
• Ceramics found on the Amazon flood plains near
  Santarém (7,000 b.p.)
• Guinea pigs and llamas important animal
  domesticates in Peruvian Andes

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Land Tenure and Land Reform

• SA farmers traditionally practice subsistence
  agriculture
• Provides most of familys food needs on small
  plots of land
• Must rely on off farm employment for additional
  income

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Land Tenure and Land Reform

• Two reasons for permanence of this situation
• 1. Small farmers have never had to rely solely
  on farm income for economic survival
• 2. Household production subsidizes the off farm
  labor
•  

8
Land Tenure and Land Reform

• Commercial farms are dependent on profit are
  large in size, and run by the social elite
• sugar plantations of NE Brazil
• wheat, potato, and dairy haciendas of the high
  Andes
• fruit and wine estates of Chile
• cotton and sugar plantations of coastal Peru
• agribusinesses of S. Brazil
• cattle ranches of the Pampas

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Land Tenure and Land Reform

• Commercial farms (cont)
• Size of these operations influenced by
• Inheritance practices
• Availability of cheap labor
• Importance of political connections
• Scarcity of credit
• Lack of entrepreneurial and managerial skills

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Land Tenure and Land Reform

• Commercial farms (cont)
• Capital investment in landed properties
  encouraged by
• High inflation
• Low property taxes
• Risk of alternative investment opportunities

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Land Tenure and Land Reform

• Result
• patchwork rural landscape
• Extensive landholding (latifundias) interspersed
  with small family farming plots (minifudias)

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Land Tenure and Land Reform

• Economic and Political Consequences
• 1. Major landowners keep hiring levels down to
  shield themselves from labor shortages
• 2. Large farms may under use their land resources
  or turn to forms of agriculture that use
  excessive amounts of capital
• 3. Small farms have an abundance of family labor,
  but are limited to the land available
• 4. This inequality has led to rural unrest and
  periodic revolts

13
Land Tenure and Land Reform

• Rural poor have illegally invaded public or
  private lands they perceive as poorly defended
  or politically vulnerable
•  In Brazil, landless rural people (sem terra)
  have united with Christian social activists and
  political organizers to invade the lands of
  absentee landlords in Parana, Sao Paulo, and
  Mato Grosso do Sul

14
Geography of Hunger

• Refers to the insufficient provision of food in
  many areas
• In South America, malnutrition and
  under-nutrition remain widespread
• Fome Zero President Lulas slogan
• In SA only Argentina and maybe Paraguay have
  levels of food consumption similar to those in
  NA, Europe, and Japan
• Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, have per capita
  calorie inputs comparable to some African
  countries

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Geography of Hunger

• Under-nutrition affects some groups more than
  others the poor, the young, and pregnant and
  lactating women

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Techniques of Agrarian Subsistence

• Shifting Cultivation, aka swidden, or slash and
  burn cultivation
• Dominates in the tropical interior and marginal
  fringes of the cordillera
• Requires periodic opening of ag. Plots from
  nearby brush or forest to create new fields
• Fields are cleared by the cutting and burning of
  woody vegetation

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Techniques of Agrarian Subsistence

• Shifting Cultivation (Cont)
• This technique does not present a problem
  because
• Farmers plant with hand tools, harvest
  intermittently, plant trees with an economic
  benefit after field is abandoned
• After a few harvests, soil fertility has
  declined, fields are abandoned and the natural
  vegetation is allowed to re-grow

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Techniques of Agrarian Subsistence

• Shifting Cultivation (Cont)
• Concentric Ring Agriculture crops are
  distributed over several zones depending of soil
  fertility and shade 
• Outer ring closest to the forest, most shade
• Shrub and tree crops bananas, mangoes,
  pineapples
• Second Ring soil fertility is uneven
• Yams, beans, peanuts, squash, watermelon
•   Central Zone hot and shadeless
• Ideal for sweet potatoes

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Techniques of Agrarian Subsistence

• Shifting Cultivation (Cont)
• Shifting cultivation does not require
  pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or mechanical
  plowing
• Pastures are often established instead of
  allowing the forest to regenerate, excessive
  cropping, inadequate fertilization, lack of
  erosion control, soil deterioration and nutrient
  loss are becoming common in SA

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Techniques of Agrarian Subsistence

• 2. Andean Agriculture, Pastoralism, and
  Verticality
• Most concentrated populations of traditional
  agriculturalist are found in the higher in the
  Andes Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia combination of
  traditional crops and livestock
•  

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Techniques of Agrarian Subsistence

• 2. Andean Agriculture, Pastoralism, and
  Verticality (cont)
• True pastoralist who rely solely on animal
  raising are rare in the Andes, limited to the
  high plains of S. Peru, Bolivia, N. Chile
•   Pastoralists trade animal products for grain,
  vegetables, and other products
•   High elevations and low temperatures only
  fast growing crops have time to mature
• Tubers, potatoes, barley, broad beans, quinoa,
  wheat
•  

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Techniques of Agrarian Subsistence

• 3. Terracing
• Functions in water management, soil erosion,
  control
• Used for variety of crops esp. maize
• Major area of surviving terraces from central
  Peru to N. Chile and Argentina
•  

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Techniques of Agrarian Subsistence

• 4. Raised Fields of the Andes
• Extensive in pre-Hispanic times
• Wide raised planting surfaces separated by deep
  ditches
• Muck from ditch bottom placed on fields at least
  one a year to improve soil fertility
• Other functions drainage, irrigation, pest
  control, frost control
•  

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Subsistence and Low Input Farming Today

• Many rural people continue to grow all or part of
  their familys food supply in kitchen gardens,
  shifting cultivation plots, small irrigated or
  terraced fields
• Hand labor, little capital investment
• Often women and children supply the labor while
  other family members are involved in wage work
  close to home or in distant cities