Migration, Labor Scarcity, and Deforestation in Honduran Cattle Country

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONCattlemen in Olancho, Honduras typically carry a cell phone in one pocket and a pistol in the other- the former a link to national and international livestock markets and family members living abroad and the latter reflecting the threat of cattle theftin a region on the southern fringe of a dangerous frontier. Catacamas, the second largest city in Olancho, is at the end of the road to the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, beyond which stretches a forest often used for drug and arms traffic between inland regions and the country's Caribbean coast. It is a region historically dependent on mixed crop-and-livestock production. Until recently, most rural inhabitants in small peasant communities near Catacamas raised cattle for milk, cheese, butter, and meat and produced corn, beans, and sorghum-rounding out diets with melons, squash, poultry, eggs, and a variety of other foods (PNUD 2014).Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere-the fourth most poor, behind Haiti, Nicaragua, and Guyana. Incomes are low and people engage in multiple livelihoods to survive. Approximately 57% of rural families in Olancho are either landless or have access to less than one hectare of land, which is inadequate for household subsistence needs (PNUD 2014:8-9).Dire economic circumstances have resulted in the development of a number of minor but important economic alternatives to the peasant agriculture, including experimenting with commercial crops, expanding aquaculture and poultry production, and opening retail stores. The most important, however, have been carpentry workshops to meet migrants' demands for house and furniture construction, which has grown in importance since the turn of the 21st century as labor migration to the United States has been integrated into local survival strategies (Endo, et al. 2010; Reichman 2011).Profiling how local production systems have changed with increasing emigration, we argue here that migration, the development of carpentry workshops, and increasing negative sentiments toward farming among youth have contributed to a labor scarcity in agriculture. This, in turn, has encouraged local farmers to shiftfrom mixed crop-and-livestock farms to less labor intensive cattle ranching. Further, this shifthas led to an expansion of pastureland at the expense of local forests and former multi-cropped fields, exacerbating an already chronic problem with deforestation in Olancho, the Honduran state with not only the most forested land but with the most poorly managed forests and also the most susceptible to loss from illegal logging, expansion of croplands and pastures, and other sources (McSweeney 2015; Murillo 2011; PNUD 2014; Tucker 2008).METHODSBeginning in the fall of 2008, we conducted fieldwork over a period of twenty months in four communities near one another in central Olancho, Honduras, spending more than a month per community in direct fieldwork that was supplemented by a longerterm (>5 years) presence in each of the communities by the Red de Desarrollo Sostenible (RDS - Network for Sustainable Development), the non-governmental organization who partnered with us and provided us local research assistance. In all communities, we utilized local research assistants, who were a great assistance in the sampling process. We randomly sampled a total of 60 migrant households-or households that had sent one or more migrants to the United States-and 60 non-migrant households (N=120), taking care that all households came from similar class backgrounds. Our sampling universe was based on previous survey and ethnographic work conducted by the the Red de Desarrollo Sostenible following Hurricane Mitch; the Red de Desarrollo Sostenible continues to work in the region today and provided feedback on this paper to assure its relevance to contemporary developments.Focusing on local production systems, we asked household heads to describe their contemporary livelihoods and tell us how they had changed over the course of their lives, taking every opportunity to accompany family members as they tended livestock, worked in their fields, sawed boards for tables and chairs, and performed other economic activities. …