Journal of Undergraduate Research
Volume 7, Issue 1 - September/October 2005

Social, Ecological, and Economic Considerations on the Impacts of Globalization in a Small-Farm Community of Paraguay

Mandy Sunshine Baily

ABSTRACT

Through local commodity and labor markets, economic globalization continually reaches rural communities in both beneficial and harmful ways. This paper considers these influences on the ecological, social, and economic systems of small-farm livelihoods in the community of Bobí Pucú, Paraguay. Four household case studies are examined and serve to illustrate adaptations in response to market changes including family structure, ecology, land tenure, and financial stability. Although it cannot be concluded that these changes are based directly on large-scale economic processes, it is necessary to address the perceived connections. This study inevitably raises more questions than it answers, but is written in order to link seemingly distant lives to our own, not so far away in an increasingly shrinking world. It is also an attempt to break down the stereotypes of small-scale farm communities as economically isolated and socially homogeneous.

INTRODUCTION

From a macro-scale approach, the lives of small-scale farmers may be easily overlooked or pushed aside in the name of "economic progress." National concerns such as paying debt, stimulating business, and increasing employment are legitimate, but they must be pursued in a way that does not overlook or ignore the true needs and resources of rural peoples. "Attention [must be paid] to the specifics of local culture, [ecology], and social structure — even though people in many settings face common problems caused by world system expansion" (Kottak Vol.101:31). Breaking the stereotypes of small-scale farm communities as isolated and internally homogeneous may be the first step in addressing the challenges these populations face.

In order to acquire capital and the resources that are accessible with it, rural agriculturists throughout the world have shifted from the planting of subsistence crops toward increasing production of cash crops for the global market. The expansion of crops intended entirely for market brings to the surface complex socio-cultural and ecological changes involving small farm livelihood systems. Some alterations include less land available for staple crops, ecological impacts such as pollution and erosion, and the result that "fewer people are available to do the heavy work that was shared in the past, either because they have moved away or because they are working for wages on large farms" ("Destination" 2004).

PURPOSE AND METHODS

I utilized a conceptual framework that treats "the small farming unit as an interlocking system of market production, subsistence, and reproductive activities performed at farm and household levels" (Poats et al. 1988: 42). My study was oriented toward breaking the typecast of small-farm communities as cut off from global markets or as a socially uniform populace. I approached this study with two specific research questions in mind:

    1. What multiple impacts has the process of globalization, forces which involve local
      communities in broader markets, had on the economy, ecology, and social
      composition of the small-farm community of Bobí Pucú (Bobí), Paraguay?
    2. What responses have households developed to cope with these forces?

In accordance with anthropological tradition, I found it necessary to arrive in the field with not only open eyes and ears, but also with a willingness to be flexible in my objectives. Though my research questions were reasonably specific and focused on processes within the community, I recognized the need to take into account broader phenomena such as cultural norms, remittances, and informal politics. While such multiple forces complicate analysis, it would have been incorrect to treat Bobí Pucú as a unique microcosm.

I conducted field research upon arrival in the capital of Asunción, Paraguay on May 21st 2004 until my last day in-country on the 17th of June. As a participant-observer, the trademark of anthropological field work, I used every available moment to gather current information about life in rural and urban Paraguay, in both formal and social settings. In its peculiarity, Paraguay is a familiar place to me. From 1998 to 2000 I lived there as a Peace Corps Volunteer working in the agriculture sector, promoting soil conservation, nutrition, marketing of local products, and environmental education with young children.

Life in Paraguay opened my eyes to other methods of subsistence and adaptation, involving such matters as interdependent personal relations and the unpredictability of institutions, including governments and markets. I gained a great appreciation for the intricacies of subsistence and political systems, and of how life’s complexity reveals itself in a colorful array of experiences. Now, as an anthropology student and researcher, I excitedly returned to the countryside that I had left four years earlier.

After I had arrived in Bobí Pucú, the rural community where I had lived, I organized meetings with friends and local colleagues with whom I had previously worked. I discussed with them my objectives, my new role in Bobí, and caught up on all the news I had missed during my absence. During five weeks of research I organized meetings with an informal "committee" to explain my intentions, answer questions, and get feedback regarding my research plan and approach. I conducted household interviews (formal and informal); attended community and school meetings; completed a community census; carried out a 24-household survey (by employing four local high-school students as "research assistants"); created community and agricultural maps with families; and delved into the area census and recorded history of Bobí at the local municipality. To supplement resources gathered in the field, I maintained both personal and research journals to record further pertinent information. Additional facts and insight were gained through my past experience living (and keeping journals) in Bobí as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON BOBÍ PUCÚ

In Paraguay’s southeastern department of Itapúa lies the 117.50 square kilometer community of Bobí Pucú. Life among Bobí’s 58 small farm households remains rooted in over 200 years of documented history. In 1789, Joaquín Alós y Bru officially founded the community, naming it Bobí Pucú after a local Mbya-Guaraní chief.

Today’s households generally consist of multi-generational, mestizo families, ranging from one to fifteen people. The community has access to a relatively stable dirt road that connects to a major paved intranational route about forty kilometers to the south. In times of wet weather, Bobí is challenged in accessibility to and from this main route. Local accounts documented in the municipality’s Censo Poblacion (Population Census) lend further insight into Bobí’s historic remoteness: "Isolation was a great impediment for commercial practices on a grand scale, self-sufficiency being the principal economy during various decades."

Bobí Pucú’s centuries-old tradition of agriculture has relied greatly on the slash and burn method of clearing fields for initial cultivation and fire for clean-up in between seasons. Unlike in times past, fields nowadays are not often left fallow because of the limited cropland available. In most fields, crop rotation is practiced along with the use of green manures and seasonal cover crops that have been utilized in Bobí for more than ten years. The majority of local farmers employ draught animals, such as horses and oxen, in the fields. Many households own work animals, and those that do not rely on family and community lending. In the last 15 years, with equipment rental available through the cooperative, a small increase in mechanized field preparation has occurred.

Within Bobí, there is a working agricultural cooperative. The cooperative consists of a small store, mechanized equipment, and 60 members of the community. The cooperative’s main functions are the distribution of commercial seeds and agrochemicals and the collection of the cotton harvest. Consolidation of the members’ cash crops has enabled local producers to secure a better sale rate in the national market. The cooperative also sells various households products (such as soaps, food, and some clothing) and also factors as a major source of information exchange within the community and with surrounding towns.

HOUSEHOLD1 FINDINGS

In Bobí Pucú, signs of the "world beyond" are evident in newly imported goods from Brazil, Argentina, and other distant locales that line the cooperative’s shelves. Less tangible influences of external commodity and labor markets in Bobí (later examined by household), reveal changes in family structure, ecology, land tenure, and financial stability. Although it cannot be concluded that these changes are directly based on large-scale economic processes, it is necessary to address the perceived connections. With each factor, "multiple causations, multiple objectives, and multiple interventions" merit consideration (Chambers: 44).

Although a small community, Bobí is far from homogeneous. One cannot speak of standard impacts of the global market on the entire community or of an average household response to globalization. In order to address the complex reality met by modern small-scale farmers, the "exogenous pressures toward change and the internal dynamic of local cultures" necessitate deliberation (Kottak: 31). Active, heterogeneous participants in their community, individual households have responded to changes in the market system and adapted accordingly with what resources are available.

In order to exemplify these diverse and customized responses, four distinct families are discussed below in order to convey the multi-dimensional elements within and between individual households within the larger community of Bobí. "[H]ouseholds are themselves systems of resource allocation," and this distribution is evident in matters of "responsibilities, access to distinct resources, and differentiated control over returns from their own activities" (Poats et al. 1988). Ideally, economic globalization (free trade) offers unity and fairness to those it reaches. In order to avoid sanctioning a myopic view of economic progress as a cure for inequality and poverty, its influences must be constantly reassessed.

Along with each household discussed below appears a topic for consideration regarding the influences of the larger economic system on that particular family. With the exception of the Rivera family, the subjects presented (transformation of family structure, ecology, land discrepancy, and financial stability) are drawn directly from information or concerns offered during interviews or informal conversations with that particular houshold. They are not intended to give an impression that they are unique, exclusive of other impacts, or applicable to only one family, but rather to describe household adaptations to globalization on a more intimate scale.

Toro Family: Transformation of Family Structure

The Toro household reflects the widespread mixed subsistence and remittance-based small-farm livelihood system of Bobí Pucú.

From ages one to twenty-one, the responsibility of the Toro family’s nine children grows as they mature. The 11-member household depends on three hectares and remittances to provide for their livelihood. The three oldest children, ages 16 to 20, no longer live in Bobí, but are employed full time in Encarnación (one of Paraguay’s largest cities located a rough two hour bus ride away) and in the pampas of Argentina. Doña (Mrs.) Toro states that all the children are expected to obtain external employment until they (the parents) are too old to care for the land. In which case, the nearest child will be put in charge of tending the land and assisting them otherwise.

Those of the Toro family yet in Bobí Pucú work the land and attend the local elementary school; no one in the household has completed any grade beyond sixth. In the rolling fields typical staples such as manioc, corn (multiple varieties), peas, beans, and peanuts are produced. The use of agrochemicals (pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers) has increased in the Toro field because of increased availability to purchase with remittances (more children earning money) and available credit through the cooperative. Additional crops are cultivated to feed animals, including a horse, a litter of pigs, chickens, and ducks. Annually, one hectare of land is reserved for the production of cotton that is sold at the local cooperative. In addition, the family tends a garden nearby the house, and leafy greens, fruits, and medicinal herbs supplement the diet. Depending on season and availability, the sale of excess produce and eggs creates modest revenue.

The family lives adjacent to the relatives of Don (Mr.) Toro. Although the households maintain separate shares of crops and vegetables, they contribute labor in one another’s fields. There is general reciprocity between the two households in matters of emergency, including financial support if the need should arise.

Declining amounts of available land and labor have complicated the self-sustenance of small farm livelihood systems such as that of the Toro family. With little land left to cultivate, many mouths to feed, and few nearby opportunities, individuals must obtain external employment to meet financial and nutritional needs. Unable to produce enough surplus agricultural products for the global market, these small farmers must seek off-site work for profit or rent land to expand their cash crop field size. These common practices in Bobí have led to an alteration of social structure. The majority of the community’s full time inhabitants are either below age 14 or above 50. This age discrepancy has led to a lack of available farm labor and a restructuring of family dynamics. Family members employed outside of the community are not expected to visit often and may not be in contact with their family for years at a time. Often, they remain apart from kin as they begin their own young families at great distances from Bobí.

Diaz Family: Ecological Shifts

The Diaz household reveals a generally subsistence-based livelihood system that incorporates non-traditional experimental practices in their fields.

With little remittance income from outside the community and minimal family support structure in Bobí Pucú, the Diaz family depends directly upon the success of their fields for survival. The majority of crops are planted for subsistence, with few hectares devoted to cash crop varieties. Brought up in the area, Ernesto, head of the nine-person Diaz household, has worked these fields most of his life. After his grandfather passed away, the eight hectare family land title was evenly divided between Ernesto and his sister.

Although not wholly dependent on their fields, the Diaz family relies extensively on the practice of subsistence farming. Manioc, corn, and peanuts are a large percent of the family’s diet. Little meat is consumed although the family does own a few pigs and chickens. External cash is occasionally gained by selling small amounts of farm and garden produce in General Artigas (a town six kilometers to the south) or by employment outside of Bobí Pucú. This employment tends to be irregular and short-term.

In an effort to increase household income, Ernesto has begun to cultivate orange trees. Beginning with a half hectare, he plans to raise the now-small trees organically. Optimistically, he bought the orange trees on credit. After five years, when the trees reach maturity, the fruit will be bought seasonally by a newly emerging juice-producing factory that is located in Fram, 25 bumpy kilometers to the southeast. Cautiously, other community members will first watch to see how Ernesto’s harvests succeed before making any investments in citrus.

The Diaz family utilizes agro-forestry, green manures, and intercropping in their fields. These methods, according to family members, have increased yields and slowed soil erosion on the sloped landscape. Although they recognize the importance of learning better cropping techniques, most local farmers are not as experimental as Ernesto. Household risk assessment and uncertainty along with socio-cultural stigmas do not encourage agricultural innovation. In addition to the Diaz’s unorthodox fields, they focus much attention on tending both a household garden and nursery.

As well as liberalized international trade, Ernesto Diaz blames low agricultural profits on shifts in weather patterns. His anecdotal evidence of climate change includes the observed warming of average temperatures that do not enable crops such as garlic to develop properly. Ernesto notes hotter days and nights along with fewer rains, stating, "When it does rain, it pours and the soil washes away." The need for fertilizers and insecticides has increased drastically as soil fertility drops and introduced diseases and pests arrive. Besides poor trade options and climatic shifts, Ernesto also cites the lack of national government support in improving agricultural methods. He claims that not helping small-scale campesinos (farmers) to understand how to maintain soil fertility without destroying the natural ecology has led to the absence of agricultural sustainability.

Rivera Family: Land Discrepancy

The Rivera household reflects a large-scale non-subsistence agricultural livelihood of few area residents.

Like Ernesto Diaz, Juan Rivera was born and raised within the boundaries of Bobí Pucú. In contrast, Juan is younger with an extended family living both locally and abroad. He focuses agricultural production on the export of wetland rice. Along with his brother, Juan manages and harvests over 500 hectares of owned and rented land. Together, they plan to obtain an additional 500 hectares in the upcoming year. The rented paddies are paid part in cash and part through a contractual agreement that requires Juan to use the landowner’s processing and drying plant nearby: kilogram amounts of rice are preset by the landowner. A driver is hired independently to transport the rice from field to processing plant to buyer. The buyer is located along the main route, about forty kilometers away.

Juan and his brother employ ten to fifteen people, depending upon the time of year; all are residents of Bobí. Throughout the year, there are two tractor operators, and during planting and harvesting seasons two additional hands are hired. As of June 2004, there were ten employees constructing the cement pipes and canals essential in the creation of rice paddies.

Although Juan is aware of the risks involved with larger-scale production (e.g., he suffered severe pesticide toxicity in 2001), he believes the benefits far outweigh the costs. It is evident that the Rivera household lives at a higher economic level with such obvious material goods as milk cows and a house constructed of cement block with glass windows and many appliances. They are one of five households, of the 58 in Bobí Pucú, that own milk cows. Less palpable factors of financial success include the need to hire house security when no one is home, "jealousy issues" of once-close neighbors (mentioned by Juan’s wife), and the ability to send all nine children to school: including the oldest daughter’s education at a high school in the capital.

The Rivera livelihood system epitomizes the movement of small-scale farmers (with access to capital) into large-scale production at least partly in response to mounting external pressures. On a per-capita basis, real income has stagnated at 1980 levels. As a result, affordable land is less available for small, non-mechanized farmers. Land competition between commercial and smallholder producers has intensified Paraguay’s highly skewed land distribution and exacerbated poverty (Poulton et al. 2001). By limiting both land access and employment, large scale producers operate at a competitive advantage (Bwy Vol.3). This discrepancy leads to further "patterns of structural change that shifts land between social classes" (Bwy Vol.3: 54-59).

Benitez Family: Debt

The Benitez family livelihood system demonstrates the incorporation of minimal subsistence agriculture with external income.

The household consists of eight members with six children all under age ten. On four hectares, owned by and shared with the mother of Miguel Benitez, only a very small portion of the family’s food is produced. Half of the land is reserved for cotton and sold each April. The majority of consumptive goods are purchased with the income from Miguel’s employment as administrator of the Rivera rice business. Until 2004, Miguel’s experience as president of the local cooperative shaped the opportunity to work for the more profitable Rivera business.

Miguel’s consistent employment over the past eleven years has allowed him to hire local field-hands to cultivate and care for the family’s four hectares. Active in the local evangelical church and politics, Miguel has relied more on his charisma and hiring of laborers than on field work or remittance for the family’s subsistence.

Doña Benitez remains in the home and tends the children and animals. With Miguel’s increased income, the family has recently been able to purchase a refrigerator, stove, pigs, chickens, and fencing for a garden (needed to keep neighbors’ animals from intruding). Basic staple crops from the field and garden are integrated with purchased foodstuffs such as pasta, rice, beans, and bread to provide for the family.

The application of agrochemicals necessary in most cash crop production (as with the cotton in Miguel’s field) increases financial burdens for small-scale farmers. Loans and credit allow farmers to initially purchase fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides, but may later turn out to be a long-term encumbrance. Often, loans are contracted at high interest rates or in short timeframes that make it nearly impossible for small-farm households to repay in a timely manner. Small landholders may become trapped in a cycle of debt-servitude that grows annually as debt is incurred from the interest rates of the previous season. Eventually, the need to find off-site work increases in order to cover this debt, leaving less time and people to cultivate land in which the loan was originally intended (Poulton et al. 2001).

SYNTHESIS

Each of the households shares in being integrated into larger, external markets. Additionally, the families reflect the various social and occupational divisions within Bobí Pucú. Although approaching agricultural production differently in perspective and objective, all of the households depicted above remain dependent on the land for survival. However, none are totally self-sufficient in food production and all rely on markets, either through the sale of agricultural goods or wage-labor.

The wealthier Rivera family controls, through ownership and rental, 500 hundred hectares of land planted in rice and hires community members to work in the paddies and assist with administrative duties. The Riveras are vendors of rice and purchasers of the labor of others. In contrast, Benitez earns much of the household income selling his labor to Rivera as manager, as he continues to cultivate land including staples and a small commercial cotton parcel. Similarly, the Toro family sows the land both for subsistence and sale, but depends most heavily on remittances from three children. They, like others in Bobí Pucú, need money in order to acquire the commercial inputs, such as fertilizer, used in the cash crop production of cotton. With little, if any, remittance income, the Diaz household relies most directly upon subsistence production. Nonetheless, they also depend upon the production of cotton for cash in order to buy such things as medicines, foodstuffs, and agrochemicals. In short, all four households, without leaving the land, are thoroughly enmeshed in external commodity and labor markets, some (like the Riveras) more comfortably than others.

Through commodity and labor markets, economic globalization continually reaches the community of Bobí Pucú in both beneficial and harmful ways. Optimistically, perhaps the emigration of family members, who otherwise would have received a division of the diminishing land according to the customary practice of handing land down to the next generation, relieves some of the stress of appropriating the little land left to cultivate. Additionally, increased access to information and communication is available through cellular phones and nearby Internet connection. Negatively and paradoxically, local production has not resulted in lower prices or increased availability of products. Rice from the Rivera family paddies is exported to Brazil and not sold to the cooperative of Bobí. Ironically, the cooperative imports packaged rice from Brazil.

CONCLUSION

Small-scale farmers worldwide, as in Bobí Pucú, recognize the increasing difficulty in eking out a living from the land. Access to information and products is more available these days, but many feel themselves worse off now than in the past. It is important to document the manner, as I have briefly tried to do, in which greater integration into external commodity and labor markets impacts, for better or worse, those dependent on a small-farm livelihood system for survival. Although I do not expect this study to have much impact on Paraguay’s current development model or the rural community of Bobí Pucú, it is my sincere hope that the information provided here will contribute to a more holistic discussion of the problematic impacts of the current global economic system on small-scale farm communities.

Even as the benefits of higher education, information exchange, and consumer goods are made more available, greater levels of environmental stress and family disintegration are occurring. Nobody in the community wishes to return to a past without electricity, without imported goods, or with little communication with the "world beyond." If there were no positive attributes to involvement with larger global markets, obviously people would not participate. However, the advantages of globalization often come with great costs, many of which may not be necessary were other arrangements instituted. This study inevitably raises more questions than it answers, but is written in an attempt to link seemingly distant lives to our own, not so far away in an increasingly shrinking world.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A Sincere "Thank You" to the community of Bobí Pucú, the University Scholars Program, Dr. Murray, Dr. Oliver-Smith, and Chris Comstock.

FOOTNOTES

1 - Names have been changed to protect privacy Back

REFERENCES

  1. Bwy D.P. "Political Instability in Latin America: The Cross – Cultural Test of a
    Causal Model." Latin American Research Review. Vol. 3, No. 2: 17-66.
  2. Chambers, Robert. Rural Development: Putting the Last First. Essex: Pearson, 1983.
  3. "Destination Paraguay." World Wise Schools Program, Peace Corps (2004). Retrieved
    3/24/2004 <http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/guides/paraguay/paprint2.html>
  4. Kottak, Conrad P. "The New Ecological Anthropology." American Anthropologist Vol. 101, No. 1: 23-35.
  5. Poats, Susan V., Marianne Schmink, and Anita Spring (eds). Gender Issues in Farming Research and Extension. Boulder: Westview, 1988.
  6. Poulton, Colin, Ramatu Al-Hassan, George Cadisch, Chinnappa Reddy and Salverda, Menno. "Balancing the Power of Money: Focusing on the Global South." Retrieved 4/4/2004 <http://www.focusweb.org/publications/2000/Balancing%20the%20 Power%20of%20Money.htm>

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