Impact of Technology on Traditional Agriculture: The Peru Case

Abstract

BOTH geographically and economically, Peru is divided into three major regions-the Coast, the Sierra, and the Selva. The Coastal region contains the major urban-industrial centers and a productive agricultural sector based largely on cotton and sugarcane production in the fertile irrigated valleys. The vast tropical Selva region comprises 60 percent of Peru's area but is sparsely populated, largely unexplored, and essentially isolated from the Coastal region by the Sierra. The Sierra region is a densely populated, low-income agricultural region based upon subsistence cereal and tuber production at the lower altitudes and livestock production on the high plains and mountain slopes. Although 52 percent of Peru's total population and 70 percent of the active agricultural labor force is located in the Sierra region, the Sierra region produces only 19 and 41 percent of the gross value of total production and gross value of agricultural production, respectively. Gross National Product per active worker in Sierra agriculture is approximately $109, as compared with $960 for non-Sierra agriculture, and $1,461 for nonagriculture [2, pp. 3-6]. The problems of the Sierra region are further complicated by short-day lengths, frost and drought hazards, rough and mountainous terrain, poor nonagricultural employment opportunities, bare subsistence diet levels of about 1,100 calories per day per capita, a primitive transportation network, a 67-percent rate of illiteracy, and stable or declining crop yields.' Given this brief but harsh description, it is clear that a program to reorient and redirect the Sierra economy is needed. The objective of this study is to examine one possible component of such a program-the effects of the