Bolivia Diaries: Day 2, Part 4 - Controversial Highway Through the Jungle (TIPNIS)

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. On our second day, we saw a presentation from the Bolivian Forum on the Environment and Development (FOBOMADE) and then took a tour of the La Paz foodshed. This diary covers the second section of the FOBOMADE presentation, which was surprisingly fascinating.

When FOBOMADE told us they were presenting on TIPNIS, I was not sure what to expect. TIPNIS - the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park - is a protected area (for environmental reasons) that is also a TCO, a Tierra Comunitaria de Orígen, or an indigenous territory. Thus, the land is twice protected - once for environmental reasons, and once because it is an autonomous indigenous area. Yet the Bolivian government is planning, against the will of the indigenous, to build a highway right through it. The issue turned out to be MUCH more interesting and complex than meets the eye.

TIPNIS was originally created in 1965 as a national park. At the time it was just PNIS, because it was not yet an indigenous territory. Then, in 1990, it was established as an indigenous territory, expanded, and renamed TIPNIS. The area then contained 1,225,347 hectare.

TIPNIS is a region of Andes to Amazon transition ranging in altitude from 3000m to 189m and including land in the provinces of José Ballivián, Marbán and Moxos in the department of Beni, and Ayopaya and Chapare provinces in the department of Cochabamba. Within the area are many different ecosystems and a wealth of biodiversity.

FOBOMADE says the following about TIPNIS:

Its forests regulate the water runoff on the plains and regulate the climate in the surrounding highly productive valleys; while large areas of wetlands, swamps and bogs play an important role in the regional hydrological functioning. This region records the highest amount of precipitation in all of the country, from 5700mm/year in Villa Tunari to about 3500mm/year towards San Ignacio de Moxos.

This territory faces serious threats from the spread of coca cultivation, drug trafficking, oil exploration, logging and commercial and sport poaching.

As early as 1992, the indigenous were negotiating with colonizers over where the colonization within TIPNIS must end. Representing the colonizers was none other than Evo Morales. In 1994, they agreed upon a Red Line that divided the indigenous territory from the area settled by colonizers. But conflict between the groups continued. In 2004, there was a proposal to redefine the Red Line.

In 2008, the indigenous and the colonizers finally agreed to the location of the Red Line that limited future settlements. However, that same year, Morales announced the awarding of the contract for the construction of a highway between Villa Tunari and San Ignacio de Moxos, right through the middle of TIPNIS, to the Brazilian company Constructora OAS Ltda.

Efforts to build a road in this area began in the 1990's. The groups interested in the completion of the 306km highway include neoliberal governments, political groups with interests in logging and ranching, oil companies, and colonists (likely coca growers) in the Chapare region seeking access to new farmland. Of course, during that time, Bolivia was under a neoliberal government.

The hated, neoliberal Goni had a development plan called "El Cambio para Todos" (Change for All), which led to Decreto Supremo 25134 of 1998. The Supreme Decree established a national road network consisting of 10,401km of roads, including some mega highways. FOBOMADE accuses the plan of prioritizing the needs of Bolivia's international neighbors over the needs of Bolivians. Building roads needed for Bolivians was left to local governments, who did not have the funds to do so. FOBOMADE feels that the plan was designed according to the powerful business interests, without reflecting the needs for roads linking regions of Bolivia.

In 2000, under neoliberal president and former Bolivian dictator, Hugo Banzer, Bolivia joined onto the project of IIRSA, the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America. This was a plan that rose out of a meeting of South American presidents in 2000. It calls for an integration of South American infrastructure to make trade easier among and through each of the various countries. Here's a picture of all of the roads Bolivia has built or plans to build:


In the map, the blue roads are functioning, yellow exist but in terrible condition. All in all, about 30% of the roads on this map exist in a functional way.

The plan for a road between Villa Tunari and San Ignacio de Moxos was announced in 2003 under Goni, shortly before the Bolivian people forced him out of office. His vice president and successor, Carlos Mesa, continued with the plan, seeking financing for construction of a road linking the cities of Cochabamba and Trinidad in late 2003.

Looking at the big picture, Bolivia sits in the middle of many other South American countries. Starting in the north and working clockwise, Bolivia borders Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Brazil, now the top soybean producer in South America, engages in massive soybean exports to China. Much of the soybean growing is centered in the Brazil state of Mato Grosso, which borders the Bolivian state of Santa Cruz. To get its soybeans to China, Brazil needs to take them across Bolivia to ports on the Pacific coast.

Even where there are roads in Bolivia, they are often terrible. In some places the roads are made of dirt and in some places the roads don't exist at all. Bolivia's lack of roads - and lack of good roads - are one of the reasons why the Bolivian people are so effective at exerting their will by blockading the roads. There often isn't another road that drivers can use to go around the blockade.

Brazil wants an East-West road through Bolivia and a North-South road through Bolivia to reach ports in Peru and Chile. It currently takes Brazil $1900 and 45 days to send 1 container from its Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast through Bolivia. With all of Bolivia's planned highways, it will take only $1260 and 4 days. Additionally, Brazil wants to get at Bolivia's Amazon. They are buying an awful lot of land in the industrial agriculture area in Santa Cruz too. Currently, 40% of Santa Cruz agricultural lands are in foreign hands.

Thus, since 2003, this highway has been part of the plan to link Brazil to ports in Chile and Peru through Bolivia under IIRSA. It runs parallel to the Sécure Oil Block, which the oil company Repsol has operating rights for (from a 30 year agreement signed with the neoliberal government of Bolivia in 1994). And even through Bolivians threw out the presidents who were pushing the construction of this highway (Goni and Mesa) and elected Morales instead, Morales continues to follow the same agenda as his predecessors.

The highway is to cost $415 million dollars, 80 percent of which will be financed by the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES). The financing was secured with an agreement between Brazil and Bolivia in August 2009. FOBOMADE says, "The government of Evo Morales chose to build the road bypassing technical and environmental standards, national legislation, and especially the rights of the indigenous peoples established in the constitution." They feel that this project is being done more for the needs of Brazil than Bolivia.

FOBOMADE has a long explanation of the harm that will be done to TIPNIS if the highway is built. There will be logging, oil exploration, cattle ranchers entering from the north, and coca growers from the south. Brazilian transnationals will benefit, and Bolivia will be flooded with more Brazilian products displacing Bolivian ones in its markets. And indigenous autonomy and rights will be utterly violated.

While I was in Bolivia, some 1500 indigenous people began marching from Trinidad to La Paz, demanding to speak to Evo Morales and ONLY to Evo Morales. As of a few days ago, they had marched 70 of the 375 miles and tensions were high:

Upon their arrival in San Ignacio de Moxos, the marchers were welcomed by local residents but also confronted by a mob of campesinos, cocaleros, and other MAS loyalists who broke windshields of their support vehicles and initially blocked their exit route. Stores and public facilities were closed, depriving the marchers of access to food and water.

While the MAS government denied responsibility for these provocations, the government’s consistently disparaging remarks about the indigenous protestors created a climate of hostility that invited confrontation.

In other words, this is an ongoing controversy that encapsulates a number of different struggles Bolivia is going through. Deforestation of a precious protected area of high biodiversity is certainly important, but this also involves national sovereignty, indigenous rights, oil exploration, coca and cocaine production, and more.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 2, Part 3 - GMOs and Local Food in Bolivia

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. On our second day, we saw a presentation from the Bolivian Forum on the Environment and Development (FOBOMADE) and then took a tour of the La Paz foodshed. This diary covers the first section of the FOBOMADE presentation, which covered their work food sovereignty in Bolivia.

FOBOMADE stands for Bolivian Forum on the Environment and Development. When we met with them, they began with a presentation on food sovereignty that largely emphasized the issue of GMOs. The end of the presentation went beyond GMOs to other issues of local food in Bolivia.

FOBOMADE opposes agrochemicals, large scale monoculture, and the concentration of land in the hands of a few, especially in the hands of Brazilians, who are eager to get in on GE soy production in the eastern lowlands of Bolivia. But another major issue with GMOs in Bolivia is the incredible biodiversity that would be impacted by them. Wiping out the genetic wealth of Bolivia's native crops (and non-native crops like corn for which they are also a center of biodiversity), either via GMOs of those same crops or simply by the expansion of large-scale monoculture wiping out the previous biodiversity of campesino agriculture, would harm not just Bolivian indigenous and campesinos but truly the entire world.

The campaign for food sovereignty at FOBOMADE comes from their campaign resisting GMOs. This began in 1994, when there was an effort to introduce GMO potatoes. This was long before Evo Morales was in power, during the neoliberal period of Bolivia's government.

Especially in 2005, when the Argentine government and Monsanto positioned themselves to legalize GM soy, that's when civil society and indigenous and campesino groups truly got organized against GMOs. There was an executive degree passed in 2005 to legalize production and commercialize GM soy in Santa Cruz.

(Bolivia has some 1 million hectares - 2.47 million acres - of soy monoculture in Santa Cruz, much of which is now genetically engineered. Argentina was the first country in South America, I believe, to legalize GE soy, and now some 97% of Argentina's soy is GE. Paraguay, a smaller country than Bolivia, has four times as much land in soy - much of which is GE - and it's disastrous. This is what FOBOMADE is fighting against.)

Even then-Senator Evo Morales, who was elected later that same year, was part of the opposition to this. That year, the social movements were successful in stopping the legalization of GE corn because Bolivia's a center of genetic diversity of corn. They did this through a resolution through the ministry of environment. But they lost on GE soy and continued to fight on it.

When the Morales government initiated the writing of a new constitution, FOBOMADE and others organized around that process, advocating an article (Article 405) that banned GMOs in Bolivia. This was included in draft versions of the constitution. However, it was ultimately softened into language in Article 409 saying that GMOs will be regulated by the law.

FOBOMADE and others also got Article 275 into the constitution, which is about Free Trade Agreements. There, they got stronger language against importation, production, and commercialization of GMOs. This actually made it into the final version of the constitution.

Now there's an apparent contradiction in the constitution between Article 409, which is vague and weak, and Article 275, which has stronger language. So now they are involved in processes attempting to get the constitution interpreted so that the stronger language has the priority over the weaker, vaguer language. There's a lot of negotiation still going on over interpretation of these various clauses.

They had a lot of hope with Evo Morales, who initially said that Bolivia should be a country free of GMOs, and yet what has happened is the opposite. There's been a 300% increase in imports of agrochemicals since 2005, and there's been an expansion of GE soy as well. Over 80% of Bolivia's soy is genetically engineered.

In the lowlands of Santa Cruz, that is dominated by industrial farmers, but there are also smallholders, largely colonizers from the highlands. Unfortunately, they've come under the influence of agribusiness, including a government agency for support of food production (Empresa de Apoyo a la Producción de Alimentos, EMAPA) which has been distributing GE soy seed to smallholders in Santa Cruz. FOBOMADE is also seeing a lot of problems with land grabs, particularly by Brazilian companies.

Beyond GMOs
Thus, the initial anti-GMO alliance has turned into the Alliance for Responsible Consumption and Solidarity. It includes a broad civil society alliance of indigenous organizations, campesino organizations, NGOs, chefs, and consumer organizations.

Throughout the entire country, because Bolivia's the center of genetic diversity for many crops, they are working with producers, farmers, and consumers to educate them about the big picture on what's happening at the global level of GMOs and agrochemicals and how to revalue local food consumption.

They are carrying out informational campaigns with print materials and their website. Also, they are working with grassroots groups in each region of Bolivia. One thing they are doing is working with chefs with experience with native campesino crops to go to each region and work with local people. For example, in the Pantanal, which is a region right on the border with Brazil that has an ecosystem similar to the Everglades, trying to help them solidify their own local food identity.

One of the organizations they are working with is the Federation of Domestic Employees so that they can bring education to their employers and to their families. In Potosi and Oruro, they are working in the area that grows quinoa that is almost 100% for export. This is an area that experiences high malnutrition because they sell the nutritious quinoa and then buy less nutritious food (like white bread and noodles) with their profits. The bulk of FOBOMADE's work is political, but they also want to bring producers and consumers closer together, similar to the local food movement in the U.S.

As FOBOMADE was working with the producers, they came to realize that one of the biggest problems was markets. So they decided to take advantage of another article in the constitution which prioritizes state purchasing of smallholder products. They realized that the medium and large producers had the advantage and they want to help smallholders access state purchasing benefits.

In parts of the Amazon, a major product is Brazil nuts, which are almost entirely for export. So one of the projects they are working on is with a Bolivian program similar to WIC. Bolivian employers are required by law to provide a "lactation subsidy" every month for a year after an employee has a child. The employer gives the employee a ticket to redeem for food.

So FOBOMADE got Brazil nuts (70% of which actually come from Bolivia - 20% are from Brazil, and 10% from Peru) included in these packets of food for 2 years. After that, there were problems after that because the price of Brazil nuts went from $2.50/lb to $4/lb. Then, a state entity was created that took over purchasing the Brazil nut and keeping it included in the lactation subsidy packets. Since then, they've been able to include other products as well, like local honey and amaranth. Before these efforts, FOBOMADE told us, the lactation subsidies were nearly all milk products, which can't even really be produced in the same regions that produce Brazil nuts.

Another program they work with is the school breakfast program, which began before the Evo Morales presidency. They found that most of the food provided came from large companies and the food was transported from far away. The food was either packed with preservatives or it even arrived rotten. Now they are working to encourage purchasing from local producers.

For example, they are now working in Yungas, the mountainous area between the highlands and valleys. For Yungas, one of the only markets is for coca. Now they are encouraging amaranth production and opening up a market through the school breakfast program to buy it and serve it to the children. This is just one example of how they work with local producers to create markets for state purchasing and for local consumption.

They are also trying to take advantage of the fact that there is an indigenous government, to see if they can have them replace junk food with healthy native foods. They go around the country having fairs to showcase native foods and to have tastings. They are also working at the municipal level to prioritize local production for local consumption there.

Through all of these projects, they are working to create a real alternative based in campesino agriculture while also educating producers on what is happening at the global level. For this, they are working with a group called the Unity Pact that is made up of a number of groups working alongside the government.

The Most Recent Fight
The different organizations were working to promote and pass a law of "The Productive Decade," which had to do with strengthening community food production from agrarian reform to credit to more. Unfortunately, as the law moved up to the government and arrived to the executive level, there were many changes made to the original law proposed by the social movements.

FOBOMADE's role was to act as a liaison and to alert the social movements to what was happening, such as the inclusion of GMOs in the law, which had been absent from the original proposed version. When the law got to the executive, they formed working groups that inserted language about importation, production, commercialization of GMOs. FOBOMADE brought that information back to the campesino groups. The Minister of Regional Autonomy, a role created in response to the Media Luna departments' effort to become autonomous, who represents the interests of agribusiness in Santa Cruz, was pushing hard for more permissiveness on GMOs.

The social movements claimed that this was a law originating from social movements and thus it was important to take out the language on GMOs. They succeeded to some extent. The many organizations launched a massive public awareness campaign, even at the international level, with a letter for people to sign in opposition to GMOs, and the letter was given to Evo Morales. With this massive mobilization, people were protesting in the streets against the law including the language on GMOs.

FOBOMADE was highly critical of the law as a whole because it did not represent the law that was proposed by the campesinos and social movements. The law has already been passed. After it was passed, they brought together social movements on how to move forward. One idea is to propose new legislation to remove some of the articles of the legislation. Also, there's a legal path to denounce the law as unconstitutional because it goes against the articles mentioned previously in the constitution as well as the Law of Mother Earth.

This law, if you want more information on it, is called the Law of Productive, Communal and Agricultural Revolution. Here are some articles on it:

• The UK Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jun/20/bolivia-food-security-prices-agriculture
  
• Argentina Independent: http://www.argentinaindependent.com/currentaffairs/newsfromlatinamerica/bolivia-enacts-law-of-productive-revolution-/
  
• Latinamerica Press: http://www.saynotogmos.org/ud2011/index.php/2011/06/23/law-under-fire/comments/

As one of the closing comments, FOBOMADE said that they have been quite successful in many ways, considering that the effort to legalize GM soy began in 1997 and they held it off until 2005. They have also kept GMOs out for any crops for which Bolivia is a center of biodiversity.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 2, Part 2 - La Paz Foodshed, Part 2

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. On our second day, we saw a presentation from the Bolivian Forum on the Environment and Development (FOBOMADE) and then took a tour of the La Paz foodshed. I'm going to start with the tour of the La Paz foodshed, mostly because it's a relatively easy and fun topic with lots of pictures. This is Part 2, which shows some of the last remaining agricultural land in La Paz and what has happened to it (it's not good).

From the traditional La Paz food market, we all boarded a minibus to take us to learn more about the La Paz foodshed. We began driving through the neighborhood of Sopocachi, an area in the center of the city where several universities are located. This area is home to many weekly farmers markets with prices better than grocery store prices.

We continued heading south and down (in altitude), to an area that used to be industrial but is now residential. This is the area where USAID is located. The USAID building is referred to as "the bunker" because it is so fortified. Industry has now moved to the city of El Alto.

As we drove, we saw the major river that drains the valley of La Paz, Choqueyapu, which means "the potato farm," a testament to the city's agricultural past. Today it is a dead river, and it is the dumping ground for the raw sewage of La Paz, as well as the waste of several leather factories. It drains to the Beni River, which then drains to the Madeira River, which drains into the Amazon.

By this time, we had reached the Zona Sur, the southern part of the city. This is the posh part of the city, where many of the international residents and those employed by multinational businesses live. The homes were suddenly fancy styles you might find in the United States, compared to the handmade adobe structures of the Altiplano or the brick buildings of El Alto. The Zona Sur is 400m (1300 ft) lower in altitude than the city center, giving it a warmer temperature and more oxygen. This made it attractive for agriculture in the past and makes it attractive as a place to live now. In the past, this was the best agricultural land because it is flatter and home to rich, alluvial soils.

In Zona Sur, where there are more foreigners than elsewhere in the city, there are actual supermarkets. Most of the supermarkets in all of La Paz are concentrated in Zona Sur. Our guide, Stephen Taranto, estimates about 75% of the residents here shop in the supermarkets. Here, there are only 2 farmers markets. We saw a chain called Ketal (pronounced "Que Tal"), which offered deals on Trix cereal (one box for 27.90, about US$4) in advertisements in the front of the store. From time to time, they advertise that they are "cheaper than your casera" (the vender you loyally buy from at the open air markets). Sometimes they advertise "Brand new shipment of American products" with an American flag. This, of course, erodes the markets for Bolivian products and the traditional casera relationships and increases demand for imports. Also, these supermarkets demand uniformity of their products, like supermarkets in the U.S.

Finally, we came to our destination. The landscape was barren and empty. We walked to the edge of a cliff and suddenly found ourselves overlooking farmland, the last farmland in La Paz, an area called Rio Abajo:


The last farmland in La Paz


A zoomed out photo of the same area.

Stephen told us that these are the remnants of farming in the valley of La Paz. This won't be farmland for a long time, he said. He estimates it will be residential in 20 years. He said the best agricultural land is often the most attractive for homes because it is the flattest and most stable land. Families building homes on steep slopes risk landslides.

Here, the limiting factor for farming is water. These are ancient farming areas, thousands of years old, that are built along the Choqueyapu River. Still, this is about as marginal as you can get due to the lack of access to the city. The only way in and out are tiny dirt roads. In the greenhouses, they grow leafy greens. They can also grow corn here due to the lower elevation.

The way these soils are managed is by flooding them with the polluted Choqueyapu River water. This time of year, August, each farm floods its field with river water full of raw sewage. People here work with no protection and they grow crops like lettuce that come in direct contact with the soil. (Furthermore, lettuce and other leafy greens are often served raw, which means bacteria is not killed.) There is little regulation of this.

About 20 years ago, there was a cholera outbreak in La Paz. The media blamed it on these farms. It is possible, maybe likely, but never proven. Since then, in the markets, the sellers will not tell you that the food comes from here if it is from here.

We got back in our bus for one last stop. As we drove, someone in our group asked whether the trees in La Paz are native. For the most part, no. Stephen told us there are three native tree species here: Molle (known here in California, where it is invasive, as a "pepper tree"), keñua, kiswara. (The latter two can also be spelled with a "qu" instead of a "k.") Stephen also told us of a native grass called paja brava. According to a book I got on Bolivian species:

Keñua (Polylepis besseri): Several species of the genus Polylepis are known as Queñua. These are evergreen trees or shrubs that can reach heights of 10m (33 feet). The main feature is the bark, which is made of papery sheets that wrap the trunk and can be broken off easily. These papery sheets often have a pronounced brown to reddish color. The tree trunks are often crooked. Leaves may be smooth or covered completely in small hairs. Flowers usually develop in bunches in the axillary part of the plant. They tend to bloom throughout the year. The fruits are a dry achene type and contain a seed.

During this part of the trip, we found ourselves in the middle of a tent city composed of identical tents. These are families displaced by a landslide that occurred late last February. They are all still in tents, with nowhere else to go.

We began climbing in altitude once again and found ourselves overlooking Zona Sur. Thirty years ago, this was all productive land that was feeding the center of La Paz. It is fed by the Kallapa River, which is entirely fed by glacial melt. It is a tributary of the Choqueyapu and it is far less polluted.

Here, you can see the degradation of the city's ability to feed itself, as farmland and farmers are integrated into the city. You can also see the impact of climate change, as the water fed by glaciers is reduced. At the top of the Kallapa, there is one of La Paz's most important hydroelectric dams. Over the last five years, they have recorded a decrease in the amount of water available to produce electricity, to provide drinking water, and for any agricultural uses that remains.


A neighborhood called Irpavi in Zona Sur


Closeup of the same area. These are very nice houses.


A bridge over the Kallapa River.


A few homes of people who are not wealthy, built in precarious locations.

As it was clear that La Paz lost most of its farmers, we asked where they went. Many became integrated into the city, becoming taxi drivers, caretakers of homes, or doing other similar jobs. One member of our tour asked if many Bolivians leave Bolivia. Stephen answered that 25 percent of Bolivians live outside of the country, mostly in Brazil, Argentina, Spain, and Arlington and Alexandria, VA.


Anticucho, a Bolivian food made from shishkabob cow heart with a potato on top.


My roommates, Tanya and Christina

Day 2, Part 1: The La Paz Foodshed, Part 1

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. On our second day, we saw a presentation from the Bolivian Forum on the Environment and Development (FOBOMADE) and then took a tour of the La Paz foodshed. I'm going to start with the tour of the La Paz foodshed, mostly because it's a relatively easy and fun topic with lots of pictures. This is part 1, which only covers the market. Part 2 will show some of the last remaining agricultural land in La Paz and what has happened to it (it's not good).

The history of agriculture in La Paz goes back before the Spanish conquest of South America. La Paz is located in a valley in the Andes and it's a great location for agriculture. As such, it provided food for the Tiwanaku civilization before the Incan conquest. There are some 1600 documented pre-Columbian settlements in the valley of La Paz. La Paz then continued to grow food up until modern times when agriculture has mostly been pushed out of the city due to urban sprawl.

Once the Spanish showed up, they were after silver, and they found it in Potosi. But they had to travel to and from Potosi, carrying the silver on donkeys and mules, and needed to eat and sleep along the way. One of the two routes from Potosi, the one to Lima, went through La Paz. They established a walled Spanish city in La Paz and they would not allow the indigenous people inside the city. Because it wasn't considered dignified for the Spanish to engage in the market, the Aymara people became the tradespeople.

During this time, the Aymara evolved into groups like guilds. To this day, these guilds still exist and manage the commerce. They are grouped around the city with shoes in place, paint in another, electronics somewhere else. We headed to the food part of the city. Our guide, Stephen Taranto, told us that even a woman selling potatoes in a square meter on the street is paying someone for that spot and she's associated with an organization. Many of the sellers survive day to day, and each day's sales help them get by.

Here are my photos of the market. It was a Monday so the market wasn't very busy.
















I love this picture because it shows how modernity (the woman in a suit) and tradition (the cholita next to her) live side by side here in La Paz.







One of the typical features of the markets here is the "casera" relationship. Customers become loyal to one particular seller, and they are one another's "casera." The seller will give her caseros a "llapa" (a little extra) with their purchase. It's kind of like a baker's dozen - you pay for 12 and the baker throws in one extra for you. Also, if the seller knows that her casero always buys 2 kilos of a certain type of potatoes, she will set them aside for him. And if he doesn't show up to buy them, she'll scold him. She'll also scold him if she sees him buying from another vender. While you walk through the market, venders call out to you, saying "Casera," hoping you will come buy from them and perhaps become their casera.


Peppers


Tunta, one form of traditional freeze-dried potatoes


Tunta close-up

Much of the food here is from within Bolivia, but not all. This woman is selling spices. I asked her where her cinnamon was from, expecting she would tell me it was from the Amazon. Nope, India.




Chicken eggs and quail eggs. Apparently the thing to do with quail eggs is hard boil them and eat them with "salsa golf," a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise. No thanks!

With Bolivia's low trade barriers, they are increasingly flooded with imports, both legal and otherwise. You see an awful lot of perfect-looking red delicious apples around Bolivia. And no, they weren't grown here.


Apples from Chile, imported here legally... maybe.


Cargill wheat, likely from the U.S.

The market sells meat too. Sometimes in stores, sometimes on the street. Beef can come from either the Altiplano (La Paz department) or the tropical lowlands (mostly Beni and some from Santa Cruz), and it is often identified accordingly.


Beef from the lowlands


Beef from Santa Cruz & the Chaco, in the lowlands


These white cows are Green Revolution cows. I think these might be Brahman but there's another breed that is very popular in Bolivia's tropical lowlands that is also white. But I think the other breed has less droopy ears.


Meat on the street. Who needs a fridge anyway?

The dairy industry is a bit depressing in Bolivia. It's hard to produce milk in the tropics, but the Altiplano and Cochabamba do have quite a bit of dairy cows. However, the dairy industry is controlled by a foreign monopoly (Pil). Bolivia does not produce enough dairy for its own needs, and yet Bolivian milk is often exported, and powdered milk is imported into Bolivia. I think I've also been served milk from a can, which I did not drink, milk from a plastic bag, and milk from a box. Probably all ultrapasteurized. Bolivians often buy yogurt instead of milk because they don't have refrigerators. They just let the yogurt sit out.




Lots of potatoes


I hate Nescafe. But you can't escape it here. I go without coffee if my choice is Nescafe or nothing.


Chicken from Yungas. They produce a lot of chicken there.

There are now quite a few ecological food stores popping up around La Paz and other cities. Of course, what qualifies to someone in the U.S. as nutrition or ecological might not be the same as what qualifies in Bolivia. In this store (photo below), we found lots of Andean grains, products made with flax and sesame, far too much soy for my liking, El Ceibo organic chocolate, and yogurt. They also typically carry various types of tea, including many that promise health benefits via herbal medicine. In one natural foods store in Santa Cruz, I found Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese. God, that's sad if that's a natural food compared to Pil dairy products!

Day 1, Part 4: Potatoes, Quinoa, and the Climate Crisis

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. On our first day, we saw a presentation I had literally waited a year to see. Last year I arrived a day late to Bolivia and missed it, and the listened to everyone talk about how great it was for the rest of the trip. And.... it WAS great! The presentation was made by Eliseo Mamani Alvarez from Fundacion PROINPA. Here is the second part, which focuses on two very important crops, potatoes and quinoa. Please at least read the part about quinoa and learn about the impact of the recent popularity of quinoa in the U.S. and Europe on the Andean people and their land.

Potatoes
Andeans say that it's not a meal without a potato. Bolivian potatoes fall into the subspecies Solanum tuberosum andigena. Potatoes were brought to Spain by the conquistadors in the 1500s and from there they went around the world. Here in Bolivia, the Aymara classify potatoes in three main groups:

• Imillas - This is the Aymara word for "young woman." Like a young woman, these potatoes are round and sweet. They are cooked, peeled and eaten. The over 100 varieties in this group include: Imilla negra, waycha, wila imilla, imilla blanca, polonia, and sani runa. And as you would already know if you speak a bit of Spanish, they come in a variety of colors.
  
• Qh'atys - These potatoes are not round. You cook them and eat them but do not peel them. The legend is that if you peel them they will cry and then they will not produce a good crop the next year. The 80 or so varieties include: Canastilla blanca, chaska zapallo, katari papa, machu wañuchi, sagampaya, and wila waka lajra. They vary greatly in shape.
  
• Lukis - These are not simply cooked and eaten. They are made into "chuño" or "tunta," traditional freeze-dried potatoes. The reason they are not directly eaten is because they are very bitter or even spicy and do not taste good unless you eat them in a freeze-dried form. "Luki" means young man. Like a young man, this group is tolerant of the cold. They can withstand the cold and, while they might suffer, they will still produce a crop. Varieties include: Janqo Ajahuiri, Luki Negra, Laram Kaysalla, Queto Luki, Janqo Choque Pitu, and Lunku Ajahuiri.

Chuño is made by leaving the potatoes in the cold during freezing nights and stepping on it to squeeze out the water during the day. You do this for several days until the water is squeezed out and the potato can be stored for several years. This is important in a culture without refrigerators. Tunta are initially made in the same way as chuño but then they are put in bags with cold water and soaked for a month until the color bleaches out and the potato is white.

These two potatoes are used in different dishes and they are very important to the food sovereignty and food security of Andean peasants. Climate change is now wreaking havoc on Andeans' ability to make chuño and tunta because they aren't having enough freezing nights during the winter. (However, they do now get the occasional unexpected freeze during other times of the year. Before, there were never frosts during the potato growing months, from November to May, but now sometimes there are. This is a big problem!)

Today, you can still find a wide variety of wild potato relatives on the edges of fields. They vary in shape, color, size, flowers, leaves, and fruits. Protecting this biodiversity is important in our future ability to breed potatoes that resist emerging climate conditions, pests, and diseases. Already, Bolivia has lost many varieties of potatoes to extinction. There are now efforts to commercialize some of this diversity in order to preserve it. I am skeptical of such efforts, and the information below about quinoa exports to the U.S. and Europe are Exhibit A showing why I'm skeptical.

Another risk is losing the knowledge of the traditional growing methods for potatoes here. Agricultural practices are highly intertwined with religious practices here. Traditionally, August is the month when people are getting ready to plant, offering Pachamama (Mother Earth) coca and alcohol in order to ensure a good harvest. The rainy season used to start around now, but with the climate crisis it comes much later, and the traditional planting calendar is thrown off.

Once the rains do come, peasants will prepare the soil using animal traction or even plowing manually if they don't have an ox team. The man will plow the field, and the woman will follow behind planting the seeds. The woman is a symbol of fertility, so a man would never be the one to plant the seeds.

Each community assigns one person to be the caretaker for the potatoes throughout the season. Just before the harvest, the peasants go to the fields and take up a plant to see if it has had production. They then conduct a ritual to ensure that the rest of the harvest will be good. After a good harvest, there will be a big celebration in the community with traditional costumes with symbolic meanings, dancing, and the caretaker will receive gifts. If there is a bad harvest, then the potato caretaker gets no gifts and he will be in the doghouse with the entire community.

Traditional peasant communities and their rituals are about living together with nature. These communities produce for subsistence, not to make money. Agronomists have had experiences where they have gone to communities and asked why the peasants do not plant more potatoes on extra land available. The peasants reply, "No, we do not need that much. We leave that land where there used to be barley planted and we let the birds come and eat the dropped seeds." Stephen Taranto, the agroecologist who helped plan and guide our trip, said there are often agricultural explanations for the success of these practices in addition to the cultural explanations.

Now, with climate change, there are new pests attacking the potato crop that weren't much of a problem before. As temperatures rise, pests can move up the mountains to higher altitudes than where they existed before. One fear is that producers will deal with unfamiliar new pests by using more pesticides than before.

In particular is a type of potato worm and late blight (the fungus that caused the Irish potato famine). Historically, the potato worm did not go above 3850m in altitude, and in the last 10 years they've been documented at 4000m. Unfortunately, they've expanded into the area with the highest biodiversity of potatoes.

Late blight has been growing up from the valleys into higher altitudes too. It's especially virulent because the rainy season historically started in October but now it begins in the end of December, and then they get a LOT of rain in January and February. Since Bolivia is in the Southern hemisphere, that's the middle of summer, the warmest months. Together, the warmth and moisture make for major blight problems.

Using insecticide and fungicide to deal with these problems is pervasive, but PROINPA promotes a few other methods, like killing the adult worms when the potatoes are harvested so they don't produce, and digging deep trenches in between areas of potatoes so you can catch the worms before they spread from one area to another. Perhaps the most promising method is using a beneficial fungus (Beauveria bassiana) that will kill the worms.

Also, recently, there is much more intense, prolonged hailstorms - and larger hailstones - due to climate change. This can destroy a crop in 30 minutes. I've heard that some of the traditional villages believe this is a punishment for women having abortions. Pat Robertson might agree, but Eliseo says it is due to climate change.

Historically, planting rituals came during August. But with the late start of the rainy season, planting in August can be disastrous. The shift in the rainy season also confuses the timing of the rituals.

Quinoa
There are two main centers of quinoa production. One is near Lake Titicaca in La Paz department. The other is near Uyuni in the department Potosi. The Titicaca quinoa (quinoa dulce, sweet quinoa with smaller grains) is grown for local consumption. The other area grows quinoa real, royal quinoa, or quinoa amarga (bitter quinoa), mostly for export. I've read that some 90% of Bolivia's quinoa is exported. With the high price the overseas markets are willing to pay, Bolivians just can't afford it. Lately they've noticed that the bitter quinoa growing region has been moving north.

Quinoa comes in different colors and forms, both on the plant itself and once the seed is harvested and dried. Remember there are over 3000 varieties. Colors include black, pink, yellow, and white.

Near Lake Titicaca, there is traditional management of quinoa production. They use animal traction and manual labor for plowing and harvesting, respectively. People tend to plant quinoa in rows according to color, but within one row, there might be different varieties within the same color.

After harvest, the quinoa arranged in stacks (kind of in the shape of teepee) with a little top on them to keep the birds and weather away from the seeds. Then once dry, it is beaten with handcrafted tools that look like sticks and it is winnowed to separate the debris from the seeds. The last step is moving the husk from the seeds, which is a lot of work. There are now some machines to do this to make it go faster.

There are many traditional foods made from quinoa, such as quispiña, kaswira, and tortilla de quinoa. Of those, I've eaten quispiña (a sort of fried baked good) and tortilla de quinoa, which is made with egg and GOOD. Usually, I've encountered quinoa in soups in Bolivia. The typically serve soup as a first course for each meal (lunch and/or dinner), and every soup I've ever eaten in Bolivia has been delicious.

The quinoa grown for export - quinoa real (royal quinoa) - is grown in the south. Royal quinoa includes 250 varieties. Almost 100% of it is exported, and Bolivia's the top quinoa exporter in the world. It was previously just exported as a grain, but now there are processed quinoa products that are starting to be exported as well. The export push came from the World Bank, and German, Swiss, and Dutch development agencies. It's related to the gluten intolerance that people in the Global North suffer from and the desire for gluten-free grains for that market.

The parcels where this quinoa is grown are very large by Altiplano standards - 20 to 50 hectares (50 to 125 acres). As you might guess by the large landholdings, this is grown with tractors instead of animal or manual labor.

Because of the high value of exported quinoa, farmers plant and replant quinoa without crop rotations or fallow periods. They are also planting quinoa on more marginal lands. The soil in these areas was poor to begin with. These management practices, plus the climate crisis, are leading to desertification. That is why we are starting to see quinoa migrate north toward soils that have rested and areas that get more precipitation.

In the past, quinoa producers fertilized the land with alpaca and llama manure. But now, because the price of quinoa is so good, there is no land left for grazing for alpacas and llamas. Without the alpacas and llamas, there isn't enough manure for fertilization, so there's in increase in use of chemical fertilizers (which are made from fossil fuels and also degrade the soil and pollute the water).

Another phenomenon happening in the quinoa growing area due to the quinoa export boom is malnutrition among quinoa producers and their families. In the past, most people had 1-2 hectares and most quinoa was for home consumption. Now, people use the money they get from selling quinoa and they buy rice, noodles, crackers, etc. And they hardly eat any quinoa. The quinoa growing area now has the highest malnutrition in Bolivia.

Someone in our group asked whether PROINPA was working with families on the malnutrition issue. Eliseo mentioned that there is a cultural stereotype that native Andean crops are lower class "Indian foods" and not cool and modern like processed food. Thus, they are working with families to try to get them to prepare traditional foods in novel ways, like in a pancake or in a bar, so the children will think they are cool.

I find this extremely, extremely sad that these foods that should be the pride of every indigenous Andean are a source of shame, and that the high status foods are exactly the least nutritious foods. Of course, this is not a phenomenon unique to Bolivia.

Bolivia Diaries, Day 1, Part 3 - Intro to Andean Biodiversity

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. On our first day, we saw a presentation I had literally waited a year to see. Last year I arrived a day late to Bolivia and missed it, and the listened to everyone talk about how great it was for the rest of the trip. And.... it WAS great! The presentation was made by Eliseo Mamani Alvarez from Fundacion PROINPA. Here is the first part.

Eliseo began by reminding us of the four ecological tiers in Bolivia: The Altiplano (highlands), Valleys, Yungas, and Tropical lowlands. With such diverse climates, Bolivia is home to incredible biodiversity, including:

• 20,000 plant species
  
• Up to 2000 species of orchids
  
• More than 200 species of cactus
  
• 400 species of spiders
  
• 950 species of nocturnal butterflies
  
• 3000 species of diurnal butterflies
  
• 102 species of beetles
  
• 175 species of horseflies
  
• 600 species of fish
  
• 204 species of amphibians
  
• 266 species of reptiles
  
• 1398 species of birds
  
• 356 species of mammals

As this area was one of the very few parts of the world where agriculture was independently invented and also a major center of plant domestication, there are over 50 native crops that contribute to the Andean diet.

These include:

• Potatoes - 1500 varieties
  
• Peanuts - 250 varieties
  
• Tarwi (lupine, a legume)
  
• Corn - 50 varieties near Lake Titicaca and over 800 varieties in the valleys and lowlands
  
• Cañawa - 800 varieties. This is a small grain related to quinoa that is harder to clean and process and takes longer to cook. But it is also higher in protein - up to 20% protein
  
• Quinoa - 3120 varieties
  
• Cherimoya - 150 varieties
  
• Cacao - 25 domesticated varieties (and more wild varieties too)
  
• Tree tomato - 25 varieties
  
• Chili Peppers - 35-40 varieties, the most popular is a spicy one called locoto.
  
• Other tubers - Oca, Isaño, Papaliza
  
• Andean roots - walusa, racacha, yacón, jamachip'eke

Corn was obviously domesticated in Mexico, but it made it to the Andes long before the Spanish arrived. Chocolate came from the Amazon basin. These both have centers of biodiversity here in Bolivia despite originating elsewhere. Most of the other crops mentioned were actually domesticated here. I will go into more detail on some of the unfamiliar Andean crops in a later diary. There are also some other less important native foods that I've found, such as native passionfruits like tumbo and mocomoco, and pacay (ice cream bean). And then there are the animals: llama, alpaca, guinea pig (which I nearly ordered by accident this trip), and fish.

This incredible biodiversity is associated with Bolivia's 36 indigenous groups. The largest are Aymara (there are 1-1.5 million Aymara in Bolivia) and Quechua (2 million in Bolivia). This trip included visits to an Aymara village and a Quechua village. It was my first exposure to Quechua (Incan) culture.

The two most important Andean crops are potatoes and quinoa. The next diary will cover both and will also describe how they are impacted by climate change and by globalization.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 1, Part 2 - Introduction to Bolivian Climate and Climate Change

This diary is part of a series describing my trip to Bolivia to study food sovereignty, agroecology, and climate change. On our first day, we saw two introductory presentations. The first was on Bolivia's geography and ecosystems, and it was given by a Bolivian biologist (and friend) named Gabriel.

To start, Bolivia is 1,098,581 square kilometers (about the size of Alaska, or twice the size of France). It is divided into 9 departments, which are subdivided into 112 provinces, and 327 municipalities. (A municipality is a bit like a county, with a main city and the surrounding rural areas and villages.) The population is about 10 million.


Map of Bolivia. Last time I was in La Paz, Beni, and Oruro. This time I visited La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz.

The main thing to remember is that Bolivia is divided into the Altiplano (Highlands), Valleys, and Lowlands. Climate, agriculture, culture, and politics tend to differ along those lines. The Altiplano departments are: La Paz, Oruro, and Potosi. The Valley departments are: Cochabamba and Chuquisaca. The Lowland departments, which are often referred to as the Media Luna (Half Moon) are: Pando, Beni, Santa Cruz, and Tarija.

Bolivia is mostly a very poor country. 58% of the population lives under the poverty line in the last census and another 24% lives just above the poverty line. Of course, there is also some extreme wealth here in Bolivia, and plenty of inequality, often in the form of unequal distribution of land.

Bolivia's climate and ecosystems are all heavily impacted by the Andes. The range was created by the Nazca plate meeting the South American plate. If the Andes were a leg, Bolivia would be the knee.



In Bolivia and Peru, two ranges of the Andes border a high plain known as the "Altiplano." About two thirds of the Altiplano fall in Bolivia and the rest is in Peru. The Cordillera Oriental is the range to the east, and the Cordillera Occidental is the range to the west. Bolivia's population has historically been concentrated in the Altiplano.

Here are a few maps that show Bolivia's temperatures, precipitation, and ecoregions (which I will elaborate on below):


Temperatures


Precipitation

As you can see, precipitation is not consistent across each temperature zone. For example, the hot, tropical parts of Bolivia don't all get the same amount of rain - it ranges from very dry conditions in the Chaco (near Paraguay) to Amazon rainforest in the north.

The information below is likely TMI, but you can use it as a reference. Here are the Clif Notes:

• Altiplano: Cool weather with a long dry season. The area near Lake Titicaca is warmer and wetter than the area to the south of it.
  
• Valleys: Great weather. Like California, except with enough natural rainfall to grow food.
  
• Lowlands: HOT. Very wet in the north (the Amazon), with grasslands in much of Beni, a large tropical dry forest (Chiquitania) in Santa Cruz, Pantanal (like the Everglades) in the eastern part of Santa Cruz, and Chaco (very dry) in the south.

Key to the Eco-Regions:
1 Southwest Amazon Forests
1.1 Flooded Amazon Forests
1.2 Sub-Andean Amazon Forests
1.3 Pre-Andean Amazon Forests
1.4 Pando Amazon Forests
1.5 Beni and Santa Cruz Amazon Forests

2. Cerrado
2.1 Cerrado of La Paz
2.2 Cerrado of Beni
2.3 Cerrado of the Chiquitano Region
2.4 Cerrado of the Chaco Region

3. Flooded Savannahs
3.1 Moxos (Beni) Plains Flooded Savannas
3.2 Pantanal Flooded Savannas

4. Chiquitano Dry Forest
5. Gran Chaco
6. Yungas
7. Tucuman-Bolivian Forest
8. Montane Chaco
9. Inter-Andean Dry Forests
10. Pre-Puna

11. Northern Puna
11.1 Humid Puna
11.2 Semihumid Puna
11.3 High Andean Vegetation

12. Southern Puna
12.1 Dry Puna
12.2 Desert Puna and High Andean Vegetation

The northern part of the Altiplano in Bolivia receives warmth and moisture from Lake Titicaca, which is located in between Bolivia and Peru. This area ranges from 12,500-13,500 feet (3810 to 4100m) in altitude, and average temperatures are about 45-48F (7-9C). Annual rainfall averages 19-63 inches (500-1600mm) per year. Each year, they experience a long dry season (3-5 months but lately it's more due to climate change) in which it is dry. Although I am no fan of the World Wildlife Fund, I think they have a great description of humid puna. Animals here include the vicuña, guanaco, puma, the andean fox, and - my favorite - flamingos.

South of Lake Titicaca, the Altiplano is much colder and drier. These areas are classified as dry puna. We did not travel there this trip.

As the Andes gradually slope down toward the lowlands, there is an ecosystem known as Yungas. This area ranges from 3,300-13,800 ft (1000 to 4200m) in elevation, 45-75F (7-24C) in annual average temperatures, and 59-236 inches (1500 to 6000mm) of rainfall per year. They experience a much shorter dry season (up to 2 months) than the Altiplano and sometimes none at all.

Yungas is an extremely, extremely biodiverse area that is characterized by many epiphytic plants. Epiphytes are species that live together, neither symbiotically nor as parasites. Animal species here include parrots, toucans, capuchin monkeys, jaguars, tapirs, and spectacled bears. Major crops include coca, coffee, and many types of fruits and vegetables.

I will include more details in the future as I cover each place we visited on the trip. For now, let's turn the conversation to the climate crisis.

Bolivia is like the llama in the coalmine of climate change. The glaciers are already melting, and Bolivia's only ski resort is now just a nice place to hike. Much of the region's water comes from glacial melt, and so does much of the electricity (hydroelectric). Already, the water is less than it used to be. Over 40 million people live in the Andes, and many rely on hydroelectric power, which will be gone when the water runs out.

There will be much more on climate change in Bolivia later, so I will leave it at this for now.