FIELD SCATTERING AS AGRICULTURAL RISK MANAGEMENT - A CASE-STUDY FROM CUYO-CUYO, DEPARTMENT OF PUNO, PERU

A risk minimization model is applied to a case study on the eastern Andean escarpment of southern Peru to evaluate the costs and benefits associated with field scattering in peasant agriculture. Farmers in Cuyo Cuyo plant up to twenty dispersed fields each year. Total landholdings for a typical family are small: less than one-half hectare is planted each year. Agricultural inputs, especially labor and fertilizers, are large, and yields vary dramatically across plots. Only a small proportion of the variance in crop yields can be explained by characteristics of fields (i.e., altitude) or the production factors under the control of household management (i.e., labor inputs). Stochastic environmental factors are responsible for the greatest part of production variance. The risk reduction model examines the mean and variance of yield obtained by cultivating different numbers of dispersed fields. Net yields are reduced 7% on average by the additional travel and transport required to tend dispersed plots. However, as additional fields are added to the household's land portfolio, aggregate production variance and the risk of failing to meet minimum needs are reduced. Pooling harvests of dispersed fields buffers households from production shortfalls in an environment characterized by temporally and spatially unpredictable microclimatic and agroecological factors.