Rural Andean Communities Research Articles

Technical, economic and environmental assessment of household biogas digesters for rural communities

This study was carried out in response to the growing interest on household biogas digesters in Latin America, particularly in rural Andean communities. The aim was to compare the fixed dome and plastic tubular digester in terms of biogas production, cost and environmental impact, using the life cycle assessment methodology. Design and operational parameters, construction materials and implementation costs were based on our previous research and literature results for plastic tubular and fixed dome digesters, respectively. According to this analysis, the main advantage of the plastic tubular digester was its ease of implementation and handling, and lower investment cost compared to the fixed dome digester, which appeared to be more environmentally friendly.

Can Andean medicine coexist with biomedical healthcare? A comparison of two rural communities in Peru and Bolivia

BackgroundIt is commonly assumed that indigenous medical systems remain strong in developing countries because biomedicine is physically inaccessible or financially not affordable. This paper compares the health-seeking behavior of households from rural Andean communities at a Peruvian and a Bolivian study site. The main research question was whether the increased presence of biomedicine led to a displacement of Andean indigenous medical practices or to coexistence of the two healing traditions.MethodologyOpen-ended interviews and free listing exercises were conducted between June 2006 and December 2008 with 18 households at each study site. Qualitative identification of households’ therapeutic strategies and use of remedies was carried out by means of content analysis of interview transcriptions and inductive interference. Furthermore, a quantitative assessment of the incidence of culture-bound illnesses in local ethnobiological inventories was performed.ResultsOur findings indicate that the health-seeking behavior of the Andean households in this study is independent of the degree of availability of biomedical facilities in terms of quality of services provided, physical accessibility, and financial affordability, except for specific practices such as childbirth. Preference for natural remedies over pharmaceuticals coexists with biomedical healthcare that is both accessible and affordable. Furthermore, our results show that greater access to biomedicine does not lead to less prevalence of Andean indigenous medical knowledge, as represented by the levels of knowledge about culture-bound illnesses.ConclusionsThe take-home lesson for health policy-makers from this study is that the main obstacle to use of biomedicine in resource-poor rural areas might not be infrastructural or economic alone. Rather, it may lie in lack of sufficient recognition by biomedical practitioners of the value and importance of indigenous medical systems. We propose that the implementation of health care in indigenous communities be designed as a process of joint development of complementary knowledge and practices from indigenous and biomedical health traditions.

Distribution and Transmission of Medicinal Plant Knowledge in the Andean Highlands: A Case Study from Peru and Bolivia

This paper presents a study of patterns in the distribution and transmission of medicinal plant knowledge in rural Andean communities in Peru and Bolivia. Interviews and freelisting exercises were conducted with 18 households at each study site. The amount of medicinal plant knowledge of households was compared in relation to their socioeconomic characteristics. Cluster analysis was applied to identify households that possessed similar knowledge. The different modes of knowledge transmission were also assessed. Our study shows that while the amount of plant knowledge is determined by individual motivation and experience, the type of knowledge is influenced by the community of residence, age, migratory activity, and market integration. Plant knowledge was equally transmitted vertically and horizontally, which indicates that it is first acquired within the family but then undergoes transformations as a result of subsequent contacts with other knowledge sources, including age peers.

Agricultural reuse of the digestate from low-cost tubular digesters in rural Andean communities

This research aimed at assessing the properties of guinea pig manure digestate from low-cost tubular digesters for crops fertilization in rural Andean communities. To this end, field trials were carried out to evaluate the effect of the digestate on two common Andean crops: potato ( Solanum tuberosum) and forage ( Lolium multiflorum and Trifolium pratense L.). The potato yield (20–25 t ha −1) increased by 27.5% with digestate, by 15.1% with pre-compost and by 10.3% with the mixture, compared to the control. The forage yield (20–21 t ha −1) increased by 1.4% with digestate – 50% dose, and by 8.8% with digestate – 100% dose and digestate – 150% dose, compared to the control. The results suggest that the digestate is an appropriate substitute of manure pre-compost for potato fertilization. The results with forage indicate that it can be applied in a range of doses, according to the amount produced by the digester. Currently, manure is either used for cooking or as fertilizer. With low-cost tubular digesters implementation, it could be used to feed the digester, using the digestate for crops fertilization and biogas for cooking; improving household living conditions and protecting the environment. Since soil properties in rural Andean communities differ from experimental layouts, the effect of fertilizers should be re-evaluated in-situ in future research studies.

A rural economic development plan to help the USA win its war on cocaine

Since the 1980s, the USA has fought cocaine in the Andes with carrots and sticks: interdiction and crop eradication wield the sticks, while Alternative Development (AD), which offers economic assistance to farmers who voluntarily abandon illicit cultivation, provides the carrots. Yet cocaine continues to permeate US streets, and rural Andean communities remain isolated from the legitimate economy. Many critics blame US belligerence for compounding the Andean drug war. The underlying problem with the existing strategy, however, might not be the aggressiveness of its military sticks, but the flimsiness of its development carrots. The inability of AD to persuade farmers to abandon coca cultivation may be causing US policy makers to over-apply military solutions – often inflaming rural communities and exacerbating regional instability in so doing. Few legal crops can match the earning power of coca. The article therefore suggests that the US carrot could be made more attractive by adopting a Venture Development model which helps rural farmers to process their legal produce into high-quality finished goods that command premium prices. Such a strategy could conceivably choke the cocaine engine by applying market-based forces to address market-based realities.

Nature conservation, rural livelihoods, and territorial control in Andean Ecuador

The Ecuadorian sierra, or Andean region, has during recent decades witnessed a marked expansion of nature conservation initiatives. This paper explores the relations and tensions between this proliferation of conservation interventions and the struggles of rural Andean communities to assert territorial authority and to consolidate their livelihoods. Through an analysis of three rounds of conservation initiatives in an indigenous campesino cooperative in the south-central sierra, I argue for a conceptualization of the outcomes and trajectories of conservation as coproduced through histories of interaction between conservation actors and rural resource users. Within this analytical framework, I underscore the importance of taking into account the agency of rural communities, their historical landscape claims, and the dynamism of their livelihood interests.

DOES TRADITIONAL MEDICINE USE HAMPER EFFORTS AT TUBERCULOSIS CONTROL IN URBAN PERU?

Decades of social and political unrest have contributed to the urbanization of the population of Peru with large-scale migration from rural Andean and Amazonian communities to overcrowded shantytowns around Lima. We administered a face-to-face survey questionnaire to 116 patients with suspected and proven tuberculosis (TB) in northern Lima to determine the extent to which the use of traditional therapies from indigenous regions persists and the impact of any such use on TB control. Sixty-three percent of participants reported some form of self-treatment prior to presentation to the National Tuberculosis Program; 52% of them used traditional remedies. Symptom duration was longer among self-remedy users than non-users (median = 25 versus 15 days; P = 0.07) and among those exclusively using western remedies rather than traditional remedies (median = 30 versus 15 days; P = 0.01). We thus found no evidence that use of traditional remedies has an appreciable effect on diagnostic delay in Lima.

Survey of three bacterial louse-associated diseases among rural Andean communities in Peru: prevalence of epidemic typhus, trench fever, and relapsing fever.

Typhus and other louse-transmitted bacterial infections in Peruvian sierra communities are known to occur but have not recently been assessed. In this study, 194 of 1,280 inhabitants of four villages in Calca Province in the Urubamba Valley were included. Thirty-nine (20%) of the 194 volunteers had antibodies to Rickettsia prowazekii, whereas 24 (12%) had antibodies to Bartonella quintana and 2 against Borrelia recurrentis. There was a significant correlation between the presence of infesting ectoparasites and antibodies to R. prowazekii, as well as between antibodies to R. prowazekii and ectoparasite infestation and fever in the previous 6 months. The proportion of inhabitants infested with ectoparasites was significantly higher in the highest-altitude village than in the other three villages. Two volunteers' antibody levels suggested a recent typhus infection, but only B. quintana DNA was amplified from lice. Epidemic typhus remains extant in the area, and B. quintana infections were encountered and documented for the first time in South America.

Infant nutrition and the consequences of differential market access in Nuñoa, Peru

The author observed and interviewed 30 women in August 1985, each of whom had at least 1 child under 3 years old, to analyze infant feeding behavior in the rural Andean community of Nunoa, Peru. Infants were generally first nursed within 48 hours of birth, subject to co-sleeping and probably night-nursing far longer than day nursing, and fed exclusively via bottle or nursing on only very rare occasions. Weaning periods were extended and consisted of continually modified feeding routines. Significant differences were observed between the feeding habits of poor and relatively less-poor mothers which may have impacted differently upon the health of offspring. The quality of infant foods and economic variation influenced breastfeeding duration and subsequent infant health and maternal fecundity. The author concludes that infant feeding routines can be neither characterized nor studied as a set of mutually exclusive hierarchical stages; significant variation exists within and between socioeconomic subsamples; both groups have parallel perceptions and attitudes regarding appropriate feeding practices; both groups perceive foods other than breast milk as complements to rather than substitutes for nursing during the 1st year of life; bottle use is neither uniformly harmful nor beneficial; the various aspects of infant feeding routines do not all necessarily respond in concert to changing socioeconomic conditions; models of infant feeding behavior must go beyond the simple mechanics of infant feeding; and great need exists for more comprehensive investigations.

Nutritional determinants of high-altitude growth in Nuñoa, Peru.

Data on nutritional intake and patterns of physical growth in the rural Andean community of Nuñoa, Peru (elevation 4,000 m), are described and compared to data previously collected from this location. Food consumption data and selected anthropometric measures were obtained from a sample of 33 households. Estimates of caloric intake from this study are very similar to those obtained in Nuñoa during the mid- and late 1960s. However, within the present sample, upper income (i.e., middle class) individuals have significantly higher caloric intakes than those of the lower income group and also appear to have an improved diet relative to individuals of 20 years ago. Anthropometric data show that children of the upper socioeconomic status (SES) group are significantly taller and heavier than the lower SES group children. Moreover, the children of the wealthier families are taller and heavier than the children measured 20 years ago at the same location, whereas the poorer children are not. These results indicate that nutritional factors have significantly contributed to the extreme pattern of slow growth previously reported for children of Nuñoa and, moreover, demonstrate how social and environmental forces interact to create differential levels of stress that contribute to variation in biological well-being.