Agricultural Adaptation in Bolivia

Abstract

T HE government of Bolivia proposes definitely to abandon, for the present, intensive official attempts at actual colonization of the eastern frontier regions and to confine its main efforts toward increasing the agricultural production of those areas of the country that are now under cultivation. In the past, schemes for the colonization of eastern Bolivia have been advanced by many political leaders. The government has fostered many such projects, freely granting land for the purpose. Settlers, lured by the prospect of fortunes easily won from the rich agricultural resources, have not been lacking; but, without exception, these attempts at colonization have failed. Potentially rich the region is, but to turn its potentialities into actualities is quite another matter. Lack of capital to clear the land and buy seed and implements has played its part in the recurring failures. Nor is the effect of tropical diseases, with which the colonists had had no experience and against which no effective means of resistance were provided, to be discounted. The chief cause of failure, however, has been the complete lack of transportation facilities and, as a result, absolute inability to get the products of the farm to market. The government now believes that these pioneer areas should be reserved for the future when the population of the country shall have increased to a number which the present cultivated areas cannot support even though developed to their maximum capacity, when the actual need of raw materials will drive men to seek new lands. How-