The role of Agriculture in Bolivia in the economy in the late 1980s expanded as the collapse of the tinindustry forced the country to diversify its productive and export base. Agricultural production as a share ofGDP was approximately 23 percent in 1987, compared with 30 percent in 1960 and a low of just under 17 percent in 1979. The recession of the 1980s and unfavorable weather conditions, particularly droughts and floods, however, hampered output. Agriculture employed about 46 percent of the country's labor force in 1987. Most production, with the exception of coca, focused on the domestic market and self-sufficiency in food. Agricultural exports accounted for only about 15 percent of total exports in the late 1980s, depending on weather conditions and commodity prices for agricultural goods, hydrocarbons, and minerals.
Obstacles
Like the economy at large, agriculture faced major structural obstacles that kept it from reaching its vast potential. The lack of roads and easy access to ports hindered farmers from getting their produce to domestic markets and to the export markets that provided the most potential for the sector's growth. A lack of credit for farmers was another long-standing problem, caused by government policies, the use of credit for political ends, and the strict lending procedures of the commercial banking sector. Bolivia also suffered from the worst farming technology in South America and an insufficient network of research and extension institutions to reverse that trend. The combined lack of infrastructure and technology made farmers vulnerable to almost yearly droughts and floods.The traditional use of pricing policies ensuring lower food prices for urban residents also lessened incentives for farmers. In addition, farmers increasingly had to compete with contraband imports in a wide range of agricultural products. Beyond these specific obstacles, agriculture, like all sectors of the economy, also suffered from the country's endemic political instability, economic mismanagement, and slow economic growth.
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Wheat |
Principal crops
Potatoes
Potatoes, the basic staple of highland Indians since pre-Inca times, has remained the most important food crop. In 1988 approximately 190,000 hectares, mostly in the highlands, produced 700,000tons of potatoes.These figures compared unfavorably, however, with 1975, when 127,680 hectares provided 834,000 tons of potatoes, indicating that yields were dwindling. Bolivia was generally self-sufficient in potatoes (over 200 varieties were grown), but imports were needed during occasional periods of drought or freezing. Bolivia also exported some of its harvest to Brazil. The lack of new seed varieties, chemical fertilizers, and irrigation systems, together with the continued exhaustion of the highland soils, was responsible for the low yields. In the late 1980s, the lack of financial credit at planting time represented the greatest impediment facing potato growers.
Corn
Corn was the second major food crop, and its importance was growing. Corn covered more hectares than any other crop. In the late 1980s, approximately 300,000 hectares provided more than 475,000 tons of white corn, the traditional corn of Bolivia. Yellow Cuban corn, grown in the tropical areas of Santa Cruz, was becoming more common; 160,000 hectares produced 350,000 tons of yellow corn in 1988.Sixty percent of the corn, including both white and yellow varieties was grown by small farmers in the valleys, with the remaining 40 percent planted by medium-large farmers in Santa Cruz. Small farmers used at least half of their corn for human consumption, as animal feed, or for brewingchicha, the primary intoxicating beverage consumed by Bolivian Indians. The other half of their production and most of the commercially farmed corn were sold to Bolivia's forty private animal-feed plants, which bought 50 percent of the country's annual corn output. Many corn farmers were members of the Corn and Sorghum Producers Association (Productores de Maíz y Sorgo Promasor). Promasor was particularly active in Santa Cruz, where its members also produced 20,000 tons a year of sorghum, a drought-resistant crop, from some 6,000 hectares of land.
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Coffe in Bolivia |
Rice and grains
Rice has become an increasingly popular crop in Bolivia. Eaten by people in the lowlands and valleys since the 1950s, rice became the focus of government import-substitution policies beginning in the 1960s. In the late 1980s, the country was generally self-sufficient in rice production, some years importing and other years exporting. Bolivia's rice, however, was not of high quality by international standards, thus limiting export markets. In 1988 some 90,000 hectares of land, mostly in the Santa Cruz Department and Beni Department, produced 140,000 tons of rice. Bolivia imported onefifth of its total consumption of rice in 1988.[2] Approximately 20,000 small farmers produced the bulk of the country's paddy rice and, in turn, sold it via truckers to thirty private rice mills.
Barley was a common crop in the Bolivian highlands and was particularly well suited for the high altitudes. In 1988 the cultivation of 80,000 hectares by 300,000 highland farmers produced 75,000 tons of barley, which was used primarily in the country's notable beer industry. About 10 percent of the barley was consumed on the farm as fodder, and Bolivia imported about one-quarter of its total consumption of barley in 1988.
Quinoa, the "mother grain" of the Incas, was the only food crop in the highlands that experienced sustained growth during the 1970s and 1980s. Cultivation of quinoa, which grows only above 2,000 meters, jumped from 15,640 hectares producing 9,000 tons in 1980 to 45,800 hectares producing 21,140 tons in 1984, and production continued to expand in the late 1980s. Quinoa is high in fiber and rich in protein, making it a potential health food in industrialized countries.
Despite repeated attempts by the government's National Wheat Institute (Instituto Nacional del Trigo) to make the nation selfsufficient in wheatproduction, Bolivia produced only about 20 percent of the wheat that it consumed in the late 1980s. In 1988 about 88,000 hectares produced 60,000 tons of wheat and in the same year, 280,000 tons of wheat were imported. In 1988 the United States Agency for International Development (AID) provided 180,000 tons of wheat through its Public Law 480 (PL-480) Food for Peace Program. Western Europe and Canada operated programs similar to the AID program but on a smaller scale. Argentina provided wheat in exchange for Bolivian natural gas. Smuggled wheat flour from Peru and Argentina represented a serious threat to domestic wheat production.[2] In 1988 analysts estimated that 60,000 tons of smuggled wheat had entered Bolivia annually. Small traditional farmers in the highlands and large soybean farmers in Santa Cruz provided most of the country's 1988 wheat harvest, which was roughly equivalent to output in 1978, but only wheat from the Santa Cruz area was used for commercial milling. Analysts believed that wheat would produce higher yields when the proper tropical seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation methods were used.
Vegetables and fruits
Bolivians produced a wide range of vegetables, fruits, and other food crops, mostly for local consumption. The principal vegetable crops included kidney beans, green beans, chick peas, green peas,lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and chili peppers. Also common were alfalfa, rye, cassava, sweet potatoes and the fruits oranges, limes, grapes, apples, quince, papayas,peaches, plums, cherries, figs, avocadoes, pineapples, strawberries, bananas, and plantains.
Fresh produce at the market in Tarabuco
Cash Crops
Soybeans were the most lucrative legal cash crop in Bolivia in the 1980s. Soybean production began in earnest in the early 1970s, following a substantial increase in the crop's world price. By the late 1980s, soybeans represented the country's most important oilseed crop. In 1988 soybeans covered 65,000 hectares, and annual production amounted to about 150,000 tons, compared with 19,430 hectares producing 26,000 tons a decade earlier. About one-third of the soybean harvest was used domestically in the form of soybean meal for the poultry industry. Other soybean meal was shipped to Peru and Western Europe, and raw soybeans were exported via rail to Brazil. In order to process soybean oil for the local market, the country maintained a crushing capacity of 150,000 tons in 1988. Locally manufactured soybean oil also competed with contraband products from neighboring countries. Most of Santa Cruz's soybean farmers were members of the wellorganized and powerfulNational Association of Soybean Producers (Asociación Nacional de Productores de Soya—Anapo). Anapo, with assistance from AID, built new storage facilities that permitted continued expansion of the crop. Because of the dynamism of their crop, soybean farmers enjoyed the best availability of credit for all legal cash-crop producers.
n estimated 2% of Bolivia's land area is devoted to arable farming and permanent crops. Agricultural development has been impeded by extremely low productivity, poor distribution of the population in relation to productive land, and a lack of transportation facilities. Prior to 1953, about 93% of all privately owned land was controlled by only 6.3% of the landowners. The agrarian reform decree of August 1953 was aimed at giving ownership of land to those working it and abolishing the large landholdings (latifundios). By 1980, 30.15 million hectares (74.5 million acres) had been distributed to 591,310 families. By 1996, 60% of Bolivian agriculture was channeled to markets, and 40% was subsistence farming.
Except around Lake Titicaca, about two-thirds of the cultivated land on the Altiplano lies fallow each year. Dry agriculture is the rule, and the most important crops are potatoes, corn, barley, quinoa (a milletlike grain), habas (broad beans), wheat, alfalfa, and oca (a tuber). The potato is the main staple; dehydrated and frozen to form chuño or tunta, it keeps indefinitely. The Yungas and Valles contain about 40% of the cultivated land. The eastern slopes, however, are too steep to permit the use of machinery, and erosion is a serious problem despite the practice of terracing. The most lucrative crop in the Yungas is coca, which is chewed by the local population and from which cocaine is extracted. The net production of coca leaf was estimated at 20,200 tons in 2001, down from 89,800 tons in 1994. Coca leaf production represents about 20% of world production. Coffee, cacao, bananas, yucca, and aji (a widely used chili pepper) are also important. In the fertile irrigated valleys, the important crops are corn, wheat, barley, vegetables, alfalfa, and oats. The Tarija area is famous for grapes, olives, and fruit. The region east of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, where most of the nation's unused fertile lands lie, is considered the "promised land" of Bolivian agriculture. Lowland rice production is increasing rapidly and already satisfies domestic need. The sugar grown there is used mostly for alcohol, but in the 1960s, the mills increased their refining capacity, thus meeting internal consumption requirements. In the tropical forests of the northeast, the Indians practice slash-and-burn agriculture.
The leading commercial crops are soybeans, cotton, sugar, and coffee. Production for area harvested in 1999 for selected crops was soybeans, 762,000 tons produced on 632,000 hectares; seed cotton, 56,000 tons produced on 50,000 hectares; sunflowers, 95,000 tons produced on 102,000 hectares; wheat, 141,000 tons produced on 161,000 hectares; coffee, 24,000 tons produced on 25,000 hectares; sugar, 4.15 million tons produced on 90,000 hectares; and rice, 189,000 tons produced on 128,000 hectares. Droughts and freezing weather in the west during the 1990s caused harvests to fall for basic crops like quinoa, potatoes, barley, and garden vegetables.
Carlos Alfredo Torres Duran C.I. 17.467.916
Electronica en Estado Solido
* http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Bolivia-
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