Small-Scale Agro-Pastoral Production in the Central Andes

Small-scale agro-pastoral production in the Central Andes is oriented toward guaranteeing a subsistence livelihood by efforts to attain self-sufficiency in food production and to reduce environmental risks. Production strategies involve the simultaneous use of several ecological zones each with characteristic crops or types of pasture. Households are the basic units of production which allocate land, labour, and capital at their disposal to meet short-term production goals. Supra-household mechanisms support the households within particular communities by limiting access to some lands, managing communal pastures, scheduling agro-pastoral activities, enforcing rotation schedules, and maintaining communal infrastructure (roads, terraces, irrigation canals). Ethnographic research in the last decade permits a detailed description of the workings of these forms of organization in a variety of ecological and economic conditions. Both the complementarity and the tension between household and supra-household claims on land and labour are discussed and some recent changes are reviewed.