Abstract
Inhabitants of the high-mountain Andes have already begun to experience changes in the timing, severity, and patterning of annual weather cycles. These changes have important implications for agriculture, for human health, and for the conservation of biodiversity in the region. This paper examines the implications of climate-driven changes for native and traditional crops in the municipality of Colomi, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Data were collected between 2012 and 2014 via mixed methods, qualitative fieldwork, including participatory workshops with female farmers and food preparers, semi-structured interviews with local agronomists, and participant observation. Drawing from this data, the paper describes (a) the observed impacts of changing weather patterns on agricultural production in the municipality of Colomi, Bolivia and (b) the role of local environmental resources and conditions, including clean running water, temperature, and humidity, in the household processing techniques used to conserve and sometimes detoxify native crop and animal species, including potato (Solanum sp.), oca (Oxalis tuberosa), tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis), papalisa (Ullucus tuberosus), and charke (llama or sheep jerky). Analysis suggests that the effects of climatic changes on agriculture go beyond reductions in yield, also influencing how farmers make choices about the timing of planting, soil management, and the use and spatial distribution of particular crop varieties. Furthermore, household processing techniques to preserve and detoxify native foods rely on key environmental and climatic resources, which may be vulnerable to climatic shifts. Although these findings are drawn from a single case study, we suggest that Colomi agriculture characterizes larger patterns in what might be termed, “indigenous food systems.” Such systems are underrepresented in aggregate models of the impacts of climate change on world agriculture and may be under different, more direct, and more immediate threat from climate change. As such, the health of the food production and processing environments in such systems merits immediate attention in research and practice.
Highlights
There is growing consensus that the world’s climate is changing [1,2,3,4]
To provide a foundation for the research reported we provide conceptual background on “indigenous food systems,” Andean agriculture, and the role of locally developed processing practices in detoxifying and preserving native and traditional crops (NTCs)
Impacts of Climate Change on Native Crop-Based Food Systems in Colomi, Bolivia In Colomi, farmers and agronomists are already observing changes in the timing and distribution of rainfall, which they identify with the broader patterns of climate change
Summary
There is growing consensus that the world’s climate is changing [1,2,3,4]. Though the timing, magnitude, and direction of such changes are likely to vary from one place to another, researchers predict that climatic changes will have important impacts on agricultural production [4,5,6,7,8], on the health and function of ecosystems, and on human health [9,10,11]. They predict a “massive warming” on the order of 4.5–5°C for the tropical Andes by the end of the twenty-first century [16] This scale of warming would threaten communities and watersheds relying on glacier-fed water supplies [17] and would have important consequences for agricultural production. We use the term “indigenous food systems” to refer to systems of cultivation, processing, storage, trade, and consumption, which are specific to particular geographic regions, and whose origins generally pre-date large-scale industrial agriculture. In this sense, “indigenous food systems” would include systems relying primarily on minor and/or endemic food crops (including native or underutilized species), or farmer-saved varieties of major food staples, such as corn, rice, and wheat. In our use of the term, the “indigeneity” of these systems is defined not by the ethnicity of the people who participate in them, but rather by the historical and cultural origins of the crops that they include, and the techniques that are used to plant, grow, harvest, process, and store such crops.
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