Flowers, powers, and water flows : conflicts over Irrigation Water and Rose Farming in the Ecuadorian Andes

Abstract

Water coming from high-altitude tropical ecosystems in the northern Andes of Ecuador has been in the centre of conflicts related to irrigation in the Pisque River watershed. This dissertation presents historical and political-ecological analyses of these conflicts from Pre-Columbian times to the present. The local inhabitants of the watershed have confronted powerful external actors that started with the Incas and continued with the Spanish invasion and the Republican era. These stakeholders have encroached upon local resources, including irrigation water, and local inhabitants have responded with various strategies including sometimes vehement uprisings and the up taking of external productive activities such as dairy farming and, more recently, floriculture. This last activity started in this mountainous valley close to the capital city of Quito and at a height of ca. 2800 metres some 40 years ago, taking advantage of neoliberal tendencies and a set of natural, social and economic features that made export-oriented rose cultivation quite attractive. Large agribusinesses started using the lands of the remaining extemporaneous large colonial-type estates (haciendas) and the seemingly abundant but actually waning irrigation water. Local people reacted in two ways: on the one hand, they heralded deeply-rooted perceptions of self-sufficiency and food security against a discourse of modernity and efficiency touted by flower agribusinesses. On the other hand, some local families that had worked for large flower farms and that saw their traditional agriculture declining adopted rose cultivation against quite negative odds in very small plots. These small farms cannot or are not interested in acquiring socio-environmental certification labels that are fashionable with large farms that sell to countries where these schemes are esteemed. Small rose growers either sell their roses to countries like Russia that do not enforce these labels or to large local agribusinesses. If they could overcome long-standing misgivings regarding associativity, they could develop potentially very successful cooperatives in a fashion similar to what happened to communities that took up dairy cows some decades ago. For these analyses of conflicting and dynamic discursive and practical frames, political ecology has proven to be both a rigorous theoretical backbone and a sound ethical guide.