Recursos forrajeros y uso de la tierra en fincas de la region de Pucallpa, Peru.
1993
Loker W.M.
The past five years (1987-1992) have seen farmers face extremely adverse economic and political conditions in the Peruvian Amazon. Their response has been, in part, to withdraw from the market and increase their self-sufficiency and subsistence production. This includes: (1) continued planting of food crops, but little or no sale of the same; (2) little or no participation in factor markets (credit, machinery, inputs); (3) little or no participation in labor markets (labor is scarce and expensive, drawn away by coca production, so familiar labor in used almost exclusively, also there are few opportunities for off-farm labor-aside from coca production, which was not mentioned by farmers as an important source of personal income). The one exception to this withdrawal from the market has been livestock production, particularly dual purpose cattle production. Dual purpose cattle production has increased in importance among the farms studied. Milk continues to be an important source of steady cash income. Evidences suggest that farmers have drawn on the capital reserves that their herds represent to maintain their livelihoods and in some cases to improve their welfare. The farmers studied seem to have many of the characteristics of a "peasant-like" adaptation: production for home consumption, minimal but important market contact, dependence on household labor and generally low standard of living. However if these same farmers had a more commercial orientation, they would probably be bankrupt due to the extremely negative external environment. Their current adaptation can be termed a "low level equilibrium".
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