Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
if the recent decadal (1999-2010) decline (IAPG
6
) in oil production from
NOA (47,600 m
3
.yr
-1
) and Cuyo (80,500 m
3
.yr
-1
) were defi nitely reversed.
Food and ϔiber
This part deals with the traditional agriculture, i.e., cropping and livestock
rising by local people for their own consumption and for local markets.
The High Andes
and Puna are among the poorest regions in South
America (Lichtenstein and Vilá 2003). Diverse aboriginal populations
practice subsistence farming and livestock on public lands. Local populations
tend herds of both wild—vicuna and guanaco—and domesticated—alpaca
and lama—American camelids that live on hilly country in both the NOA
and Cuyo regions. All of these camelids are sources of meat and hair. Lamas
are mostly raised for their meat. Its hair has some demand but it is not as
valuable as vicuna's. The best quality fi ber was US$ 1.93 per kilogram paid
to the herder in 2007. The lama population was about 161,400 heads in
2002 (Minagri 2011). About two-thirds of it was in the province of Jujuy, in
northwestern Argentina, mostly in the Puna ecoregion. The most valuable
of these is vicuna, also prized for its sacral symbolism as a property of
Mother Earth (Pachamama) (Lichtenstein and Vilá 2003). Goats are also
raised for their milk and meat on natural pastures covering hill slopes in
both the NOA and Cuyo regions.
Farming depends mainly on rainfall since the aboriginal people
constitute a landless peasantry group and, therefore, they are practically
excluded from participating in local irrigation schemes. Altitude, harsh
weather, destructive frosts, scarcity of water, droughts, soil erosion and
overgrazing constrain agriculture and economic growth. These restrictions
are enhanced by the absence of production systems adapted to a xeric
environment, long distances, diffi culty to reach markets, and low demand
for regional products. Lack of economic opportunities encourages the
emigration of locals to rural and urban conditions at lower altitudes in
quest of better living conditions (Lichtenstein and Vilá 2003).
Terraces and peatlands are substrata used by indigenous peoples for
raising crops in the High Andes ecoregion. Aymara and Atamaqueño people
drain peatlands and strip away their surface layers in order to use the
underlying organic mineral soil for farming (Squeo et al. 2006). Terracing is
an example of an indigenous adaptive technology developed over millennia
for growing native species in a particularly harsh arid environment of the
High Andes (FAO 2009). Aboriginal people grow many native food plant
species on these terraces. Terraces were made not only for facilitating
cultivation work, but to collect water from sporadic rains and snowmelt
running off mountain slopes (FAO 2009).
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