Brief Communication: Does Integration to the Market Threaten Agricultural Diversity? Panel and Cross-Sectional Data From a Horticultural-Foraging Society in the Bolivian Amazon

Abstract

Trade theory predicts that the expansion of markets induces households to specialize and intensify production. We use plot-level data (n = 64) from a panel study of 2 village and cross-sectional data from 511 households in 59 villages of Tsimane' Amerindians (Bolivia) to test the predictions. Results of bivariate analyses using both data sets suggest that as households integrate into the market economy they: (1) deforest more, (2) expand the area under rice cultivation, the principal cash crop, (3) sell more rice, and (4) intensify production by replanting more and by replanting newly cleared plots with maize, another cash crop. Results mesh with predictions about production specialization and intensification of trade theory. The analysis also produced results running counter to predictions from trade theory. For example, households and villages more integrated into the market planted more cassava and rice varieties, intercropped more, and put more crops in new fields than more autarkic households. Although the expansion of markets induces specialization and intensification in selected cash crops, it does not erase completely agricultural diversity. We hypothesize that despite the expansion of markets, households retain agricultural diversity because the market does not yet provide modern forms of self-insurance or well-functioning labor, credit, and product markets that would allow households to protect food consumption when faced with shocks. Without better insurance mechanisms, some agricultural diversity might still allow households to smooth consumption.

Ethnobotanical Knowledge and Crop Diversity in Swidden Fields: A Study in a Native Amazonian Society

“…Our previous research among the Tsimane' also suggests that crop diversity is relatively low in new fields, compared with the results from other studies in the Amazon (Eden and Andrade 1987;Johnson 1983;Wezel and Ohl 2005). In a previous study, we found that as many as 67% of newly-opened plots reportedly had only one crop (Vadez et al 2004). Rice was the most important crop, present in 85% of new fields.…”

“…Maize, plantain, and manioc were found in 57%, 33%, and 18% of new fields, respectively. Only 14% of new fields had crops other than the four primary crops mentioned above (Vadez et al 2004).…”

Protected Area Establishment and Its Implications for Local Food Security

“…According to Godoy et al (2005), few local human populations depend exclusively on biodiversity resources, and most have a more direct relationship with cultivated food and commercialized products, which is the case for the communities around Acaraí State Park. However, the creation of a protected area as a strategy for biological conservation can shift the degradation of environments and biodiversity to other unprotected areas because areas for cultivation and livestock are needed to offset the use of natural resources for subsistence and food (Godoy et al, 2005;Vadez et al, 2004).…”

Food Sustainability Challenges in the Developing World

“…In certain cases, in some of the tropical regions, increases in agricultural biodiversity (e.g. the use of non-timber forest products) have been recommended as a way of minimizing natural resource degradation as well as an effective way of tackling poverty in rural areas (Vadez et al 2004). Agro-forestry and the practice of apiculture (beekeeping) for producing highly prized honey in plantations (e.g.…”