Agropastoral Production Systems, Intra-household Resource Allocation and Household Member's Domains

IV. FIVE FAMILIES IN SAN JOSÉ LLANGA (continued)

Case Study Two

This family is a female headed household, something that may become a trend in San José due to the consistent drought periods forcing the men to work in the cities. The husband has been living in La Paz with relatives where he works as an auto-mechanic. Although the wife is in charge of the daily farm activities, the husband returns during the crop planting and harvesting seasons.

1. Demographics

Although the family owns a home in Espiritu Vilqui, they have lived for fifteen years in the central plaza in the zone of Barrio to facilitate their children's education. They live in a "rented" home, but they do not pay anything as it belongs to the wife's father. The husband and wife have been married for twenty-seven years and have four children, all of whom (except the youngest) help with the agricultural chores. As table 2-1 indicates, all family members, except the youngest have been, or are currently, attending school.

Also of interest, the husband has traveled abroad. As a young man, he was part of a Bolivian folk-dance troupe that traveled in North America and parts of Europe. After one year with the dance troupe he returned to live and raise a family with his wife in Espiritu Vilqui.

Both the husband and wife are originarios (having a family history) in San José although the husband lived in Espiritu Vilqui and the wife in Calunimaya. The house and land that the family owns in Espiritu Vilqui were inherited from the husband's parents while the land owned and rented in Calunimaya originates from the wife's side.

This family relies more on the husband's source of outside income rather than sale of agricultural products. When unexpected expenses arose, however, they did sell the old live sheep or sheep wool to obtain cash. Also, after the family completed their harvest, the wife began to work for another community member harvesting their crops for wages. This information was obtained during a formal survey after the case study.

At the time of the case study, the family was making plans to move from San José to La Paz to join the husband on a temporary basis for one year. They were going to sell part of each herd to finance the move and board the remaining animals with the husband's sister at thirty bolivianos ($7) per month. This action was to provide a secure source of income to which they could return if things in the city did not work out as they expected. By the time of the survey, however, the family changed their plans and will remain in San José Llanga. Also, for most of the study period (year), the husband lived away from home. When he returned to help with the harvest in March, the decision was made that he would not be returning to the city to work for wages. The family decided to put more of an emphasis on the production of agricultural goods to supply the family income.

2. Land Resources and the Crop Enterprise

This family owns ten and a half hectares of land located in two zones (Espiritu Vilqui and Calunimaya) that is divided among crop and fallow land (Table 2-2). Rented cropland is planted with forage barley and has alfalfa for the livestock. The cost of renting the land for barley was 70 bolivianos while the alfalfa cost them 150 bolivianos (about $17 and $37, respectively). The rented native rangeland is in Calunimaya. Because it is near the river, it is a better feed source for livestock. Of this area f that native rangeland they cut k'ora, a natural forage that grows after the rainy season, to feed the animals at home.

The crops shown in table 2-3 that were produced last year and can be used in four ways: for human consumption, for animal consumption, for sale, and for seed. The crops consumed by the family include potatoes, barley, and wheat, while those consumed by animals include barley, forage wheat, and alfalfa. They saved seed from potatoes, wheat, and from some of the forage wheat that had been harvested later than the rest. They had no plans to sell any of their crops, but rather are planning to buy more food crops to last through the year.

3. Sheep Production

The family's resources, in terms of sheep production, are characterized by a herd of app roximately thirty-six sheep. Thirty-one of the sheep are of the native breed, leaving four crossbreds. The family plans on selling all but three of the sixteen males.

Throughout the study period, products the family consumed or used included: milk, wool, mutton and manure. They used a total of forty-four liters of milk to make cheese, tea and soup. All thirty pounds of shorn wool were used to make bed covers and clothing. Two sheep were slaughtered during festivals and twelve quintals of sheep manure were collected to fertilize their crops.

Because the husband was away most of the year, the decision to sell a sheep product was made by the wife when she needed money at a particular time. Three live sheep and two hides were the only things that this family sold throughout the year for cash. They sold both sheep and sheep hides at the Sunday Patacamaya fair. The money was used to buy food and household products.

4. Dairy Production

This family has a herd of dairy cows that includes a young bull and three adult reproductive cows, one of which has a female calf. All of the animals are of the native breed and are owned by the family.

Although this family maintains a herd of dairy cattle, they had not been selling milk to PIL throughout the study period year because they did not have milking cows. Breeding through artificial insemination was unsuccessful.

The products that the family consumed or used were milk and manure. Although the family had not delivered milk to PIL, they did consume milk from a cow right before its calf was sold. The other product, ten and a half quintals of cow manure, was used for cooking fuel. A one year old cow was sold to cover agricultural expenses.

5. Herd Dynamics

This family has maintained approximately the same number of cattle as they had grazed it four years ago. The adult cows have been producing calves, but the family chose to sell them to cover expenses rather than build the herd. In general, the sheep herd has remained about the same over the four year period as the family has sold most of the lambs produced each year. Previously, when asked about the future plans for both livestock enterprises, the family was considering a move to La Paz. They had responded that most of their animals would be sold, save a few, to finance the move, therefore, there were no plans for herd expansion. During the survey however, they had changed their plans and were not going to move from the community after all. The husband was going to remain in the community with the family, and plans for herd expansion, possibly up to fifty sheep and nine dairy cattle were underway.

6. Labor Allocation

Intra-household labor allocation can be divided among the different agricultural enterprises this family maintains. Because the husband was away most of the year, the livestock enterprises were managed by the wife and children, while the husband returned home to assist the wife with the crop enterprise and take care of seasonal dairy tasks. Person-specific tasks within each agricultural enterprise is down and addressed in the following sections.

a. Crop Production

Crop production is one enterprise in which the husband and wife share responsibility for the management and decision making process. The wife oversees any problems with the crops during the year while the husband is away. All phases of production were completed by the couple, but they did receive sporadic help from the daughters. In general, as shown in table 2-4, each phase of production is broken down according to specific family members that were needed to complete each task. Task specific activities are described for each family member in the following paragraphs.

The first phase of production, tilling, is the only phase in which the family hires outside labor to plow. The second phase, cleaning the land of debris, was only done for potatoes and was completed by the husband and wife. The third phase, planting, has three separate stages, all of which were completed for potato production only. The husband controlled the plowing, leaving the wife responsible for both seeding and fertilizing. None of these phases were completed for alfalfa production because the family rents the land to cut alfalfa, not plant it.

The couple worked together to cover the plant base and fertilize (with urea) for potato production, but received additional assistance from the two daughters to complete fumigation. These three phases were not completed for any other crop and was partly to blame for the failed quinoa crop.

Potatoes, forage barley and quinoa were the three crops that suffered under environmental and/or insect attack. On one visit to the potato field, it was observed that the surface vegetation for their field was not very tall and generally not as green or leafy compared to that of other surrounding fields. A January frost played a factor in the poor appearance of the field. Many of the potatoes picked during this study period were small. The wife commented that there would be very few large size potatoes.

The family was also unable to harvest either the quinoa or the forage barley crop. The forage barley crop was ruined during the same frost. The loss of this forage crop forced the family to harvest the majority of the barley crop early before the grain was formed, to store for the livestock. Quinoa on the other hand, survived the frost, but was then lost to insects.

The last phase, harvesting, was completed by the husband and wife with help from both daughters during the barley harvest. Not much labor was needed during the harvest period because of the small amount of land left to harvest. The children do not contribute a great amount of labor during harvest because they are responsible for herding sheep and cattle.

b. Sheep production

Sheep production was the enterprise to which the two oldest girls devoted most of their time. Their main task was to take turns herding sheep and milking. The tasks that the wife performed were selling, shearing, bathing, cutting the tails of the newborn females, and collection of manure.

The two girls take turns herding the sheep when they are not in school. During the school year, both daughters attend the afternoon session, therefore the wife is left with herding the sheep and cattle together. When the two older girls go to school, the oldest son can join (he attends the morning session) and assist the mother with the afternoon sheep herding.

Sheep milking is done by the two older girls before going to native rangeland in February and March. They milked about five sheep every morning and received three-fourths a liter of milk from the herd.

Whenever the family was in need of quick cash, it was the wife's responsibility to transport and sell sheep at the Sunday Patacamaya fair. Walking with the animals early in the morning usually took about five hours. Because they did not sell their animals to a middleman, she usually stayed most of the day. Once the money from the sale was received, she was in charge of spending it on household needs.

Shearing, bathing, cutting the newborn tails, and collection of manure were all done by the wife with occasional help from the children or husband if he was at home for a day. In general, she sheared in March, but she also shears at other times if the need arises. Shearing was done each morning for one hour in the corral before the animals were taken to graze. She and one of the daughters took the sheep to be dipped at a nearby public bath yard. She does receive occasional help from the husband, whenever he returns home, collecting the manure from the corral that will be used for their crops.

c. Cattle

The wife and daughters were responsible for the daily care associated with dairy cattle production. These tasks include: herding, feeding forage and collection of manure. The husband returned home to take care of the seasonal tasks of breeding and selling.

The wife is usually in charge of herding the cattle during the day. She is sometimes accompanied by the daughter and youngest son when not herding the sheep. The family has two areas to graze the animals depending on the time of the year and the vegetation available. During January, February and March, they take the cows to higher native range fields about an hour walk from their home in Barrio. There, the cows graze on k'ora, and she cuts barley to supplement their diets. For the other nine months the cows graze in the lower lands near their home in Espiritu Vilqui.

Most of the time, the cows and sheep are herded together until noon. The first half of the day is spent walking in the direction of the water-hole with a few breaks taken for the animals to graze. After watering the animals at noon, the herds are split up to graze in different areas. The wife tethers the animals during the afternoon, switching them periodically, and spends her time resting, cutting forages to feed the animals, or spinning thread for later use. She leaves the grazing area in the late afternoon to walk home with the daughter and sheep herd.

Breeding and selling were the two tasks for which the husband returned home to attend. Due to the financial constraints the family was faced with which, this past year, they opted to try artificial insemination with one cow because of low cost. This was not successful.

The couple walked together for four hours to sell their cow at the Sunday fair in Patacamaya. They spent most of the morning negotiating prices with other farmers before finally selling. The money received was spent by both of them to purchase household and educational supplies for the family and children as well as to buy things for a festival.

The last two tasks, collection of cattle manure and feeding of forage, are mainly done by the wife, but assisted by the husband when he returned home for good in March. From June through October the family feeds cut forages to the cows each evening. The other task, collection of manure, is done one morning each month and the manure is stored in piles behind the house.

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